A few weeks ago, Julie had a bit of trouble with popovers. They didn't pop. It's a problem she's had before. Poor Julie! Popovers are such a beautiful thing. What better vehicle for some good, organic, sweet butter and some lovely imported French jam? I've made popovers quite a few times and have always had success. I thought I'd make a batch so I could tell Julie exactly how I did it, in hopes that I could find the reason her popovers won't pop...
Popovers Puffy buns with space for stuffing
(12 popovers)
Mix thoroughly:
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
2 tbsp melted butter
Use popover pans or regular muffin tins. Pre-heat oven to 450. Grease muffin tins and heat in pre-heated oven. When hot, fill 1/3 full with popover batter. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for 10 - 20 minutes longer. Do not open oven until after 30 minutes of baking or popovers may fall. Eat with butter or jam or cheese.
I followed the instructions pretty closely. I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another. I added the dry to the wet and whisked until the batter was smooth. I used a regular nonstick muffin pan. I even preheated the pan for just a couple minutes while the oven was getting up to temp, which I don't normally bother to do. I think it helped -- they popped higher than I've ever had popovers pop!
Of course, I used a different recipe than I usually do, too. Some of them did have weird little indentations, but they were still pretty poufy. I usually like my popovers for breakfast, with butter and jam (of course!), but they went very well with the corn chowder my parents and I had last night!
Well, Julie... I don't know what to say. I can't imagine why your popovers don't pop. All I do differently is I'm not quite as fussy as the recipes want me to be. I hope you have better popover luck soon!
** Warning: the following paragraph contains extensive whining. **
I'm not having a very good day. It's cold, gray, snowy, rainy, and depressing here. I stayed up too late last night and got up too early this morning. I went to Wal-Mart this afternoon, which never fails to piss me off (I was so mad after being there for just a few minutes that I put back the stuff I wanted to buy and left! I don't know why I put myself through the horror of that store.). I got a CD from BMG that I never ordered, and I'm sure that I told them not to send it to me! Damn Selections of the Month. I e-mailed a guy in Boston about an apartment I looked at last week and I haven't heard back from him yet. My computer is very slow tonight. I even had a bread failure earlier this evening! That's when I know things are not looking so up.
OK. I'm done whining.
Craving someting raspberry-ish, I turned to my trusty copy of Lean and Luscious and Meatless. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's such a geeky title for a cookbook, but it has a lot of great recipes. I found a recipe for Orange Marmalade Bread and thought maybe I'd try converting it into a Raspberry Jam Bread. Here's what happened...
Raspberries and Jam Bread
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 cup rasberry all-fruit spread
1 cup orange juice
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup frozen raspberries (no need to thaw)
Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 4x8 loaf pan or spray with non-stick cooking spray (I love my Baker's Joy!).
Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.
Combine all remaining ingredients except berries in another bowl. Add to dry mixture, combining just until dry ingredients are moistened. Gently fold in berries. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake 35 - 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center of bread comes out clean.
I baked that bread for 45 minutes, inserted a toothpick, and deemed it done. I let it cool for about 5 minutes in the pan and then turned it out onto a cooling rack. It imploded upon removal from its pan. The middle was still all raw and soupy! I managed to salvage a slice off each end, and I have to tell you, it was pretty damn good bread. It had tons of raspberry flavor, with a nice little hint of orange.
Too bad I had to throw away the rest! I won't even share a picture of the carnage with you. It's too horrifying.
So what happened? Did I just not cook it long enough? Was my oven lying to me about being up to temperature? Is raspberry jam so much thinner than orange marmalade that it made the dough too wet? Should I have used less juice? The batter didn't seem too thin. Sigh. Maybe it was just bad Karma. Are the planets out of alignment? And just how many planets are we up to these days, anyway? The Solar System just isn't what it used to be.
I am 34 years old. I have an Easy-Bake Oven, and I use it!
This particular oven was manufactured in the early 80s... but I just got it a couple of years ago! I found it on ebay, brand-new, never-been-opened, mint-in-package, and all that other ebayspeak. I chose this particular vintage because it was from around the time I would have had an Easy-Bake Oven, had it occurred to me at that time to want one. I just never really thought about it, I guess. My mom baked everything in the regular oven. Why wouldn't I?
What's really fun about my Easy-Bake Oven is that I get to use the miniature kitchen gadgets I have collected over the years. They are perfect for the jobs at hand. Tonight, I mixed chocolate cookie dough in a custard cup with a mini rubber spatula...
... and marshmallow filling in another custard cup with a mini whisk...
... to make mini whoopie pies:
How adorable are those?!? Each one is about an inch in diameter.
Are whoopie pies a New England thing, or are they common all over the country? It seems as though I heard something a long time ago about them being popular pretty much just in New England. They are my absolute favorite junk food on the planet. But I digress.
I have found that my Easy-Bake Oven is the perfect remedy for those late night, need-sugar-now fits. The little cakes and cookies are quick, easy, and a great exercise in portion control! Plus, they're just so damn cute. I'm sure they're also full of lots of scary chemicals and artificial thises and thats that I generally don't eat... but seriously, the oven only comes out once every couple of months or so. I think I'll survive.
Not long after I got my Easy-Bake, I searched the 'net for recipes to make my own little cake mixes. It was a lot of fun to mix up the flour, sugar, cocoa, and shortening, and I portioned the mix into snack-size Ziploc baggies. Again, too cute for words. Unfortunately, the cakes these mixes made were awful! Does anyone out there have any good homemade mix recipes? I know there's an Easy-Bake cookbook... in fact, it's on my Amazon wish list. =) And the official Easy-Bake website has some fun stuff, too... but I'd love to hear what you (and/or your kids!) like to make in your Easy-Bake Ovens!
... epiphany? Revelation? Awakening? However you choose to file it, here's what I discovered today: The Pantry. I've lived in Maine for thirtysomething years. I've been in plenty of good old New England houses. But until today, I had never seen a real, live Pantry. I'd certainly heard tell of such wonders, but the closest thing I'd ever seen was a large cupboard within the kitchen, intended for dry goods, canned goods, crackers, cookies, spices, boxes of Kraft Cheese and Macaroni, etc. In greater Boston, however, many of the apartments have Pantries. From what I've seen, it's more uncommon for a Boston kitchen to not have a Pantry! And just in case you were wondering, I know that "Pantry" shouldn't really start with a capital "P...." but The Pantry is such a beautiful thing to me, I think it should. And doesn't the word "pantry" start to seem very strange after it's been used a few times?
Guess what? It snowed here today. Again. It feels like it hasn't stopped snowing for two months. So in between shoveling snow and apartment hunting, I felt the need, of course, to bake something. Here's another recipe from my NordicwareBundt Cookbook...
Spicy Mandarin Muffins
1 (11 oz.) can mandarin oranges (cut each slice into 3 - 4 pieces)
1-1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup sugar
1-3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp allspice
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, melted
Drain mandarin oranges thoroughly. In large bowl combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk and egg; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. Gently stir in oranges. Divide batter evenly into a greased Bundt Mini-Muffin or Bundt Muffin Pan. Bake at 350 for 15 - 20 minutes. Turn out on wire rack. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp cinnamon. While hot, dip tops of muffins in melted butter, then roll in sugar mixture.
For excellent eating and keeping qualities, keep dough as soft as possible, just so you can handle it.
Unfortunately, this recipe didn't show off the pretty shapes my Bundlette pan makes nearly as well as my Mini Spice Cakes did. My apologies for the crappy picture, but I didn't have much to work with. Not to mention the fact that the muffin-cakes were a huge disappointment! They seriously lack flavor. The spices were un-detectable, the cakes weren't as sweet as I like my muffin-type-foods to be, and the oranges could barely be tasted! The texture was nice... light, moist, and fluffy... but it didn't make up for the other shortcomings. This isn't a recipe I plan on making again. That does't happen to me very often! I guess I'm just having a bad Karma day or something.
