One of the recipes in the recipe cards was for these Cinnamon Doughnut Puffs. Delicious buttery muffins, rolled in melted butter and cinnamon sugar after baking.
The flavour of them is very similar to the favour of a cake doughnut. Cake Doughnuts are my favourite kind of doughnuts!
She was making doughnuts right up into her old age. Mom said however that she would always burn her fingertips in the fat because she had lost the feeling in them by that time.
The last time we saw her she was suffering from Dementia. By that stage she was seeing things that were not there and did not know who most people were. My sister and I spent most of that visit in the field by the house feeding the old white horse that was kept there carrots and apples.
My sister was horse crazy. She used to say she was going to marry one when she grew up. She came close. Her first husband was a jack you know what, LOL Sorry, I could not resist and truth be told she would agree with me!
Anyways, Doughnut Muffins. I adore Doughnut Muffins. You get all of the wonderful flavour of a cake doughnut without any of the faff of frying!
My mother used to buy a bag of them every now and then for us as a real treat. She would warm them up in the oven in a paper bag. Nothing on earth tasted better than those doughnuts. She would give them to us as a dessert with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side. Heaven.
These have a beautiful texture. I love the flavour of the nutmeg in them. I suppose that is also what I love about cake doughnuts! I adore nutmeg!
I have also added some vanilla. Mostly because I am trying to use it up before I move, but also because I like vanilla and it goes really well with nutmeg.
If I had to choose between a cake doughnut and a yeast doughnut, I will choose a cake doughnut every time. There is something about their texture that I love more than anything in the world.
When you are making these, do not overmix the batter. Its okay to have a lumpy batter when it comes to muffins. In fact it is most desirable. Overmixing will result in a tough muffin and they won't raise as high!
I think of all the cake type doughnuts, sour cream are my favourite kind, followed closely by sour cream chocolate (doughnuts!). I can't wait to go to Tim Hortons and enjoy a couple of Tim Bits!
That's what they call the doughnut holes back home. Tim Bits. Nothing of the dougnut is wasted and you can buy the Tim Bits by the box, small, medium and large. And, if you take your kids there after socker practice, they will give them a free Tim Bit, which to a child is a very big deal!
Cinnamon Doughnut Puffs
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (120ml) milk
- 1/3 cup (80g) butter, melted
- 1 large free range egg, beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 2/3 cup (225g) all purpose (plain) flour
- 3/4 cup (150g) sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/3 cup (80g) butter, melted
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. Butter a 12 cup muffin tin really well with butter or spray with cooking spray. Set aside.
- Combine the milk, egg, vanilla, and melted butter in a measuring cup.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg together in a bowl. Make a well in the centre and add the wet ingredients all at once. Stir together just to combine. Divide between the greased muffin cups.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes. They should be well risen and a toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean. Tip out of the pan onto a wire rack and allow to cool for several minutes.
- Put the melted butter in one bowl and mix the sugar and cinnamon together in another bowl. Roll the warm muffins in the butter and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar to coat.
- Serve warm, split and spread with butter. Delicious!
There are a great many versions of this delicious muffin out there. This one is excellent and makes for the perfect weekend breakfast with your morning cuppa!
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Feta is a type of cheese with a delicious flavor and is neither too soft like chevre or ricotta nor too hard like cheddar or jack. It lies in between and can be made very easily. It does not require much time or fancy equipment and is quite similar to making hard cheese.
Although considered as hard cheese, feta does not require to be pressed in a cheese press with heavyweights like other hard cheeses. The whey which is necessary to be expelled is done so easily when the weight of the curds is drained in a cheesecloth sack.
But like all other cheese, feta cheese can and will go bad depending upon its initial packaging and storage.
Equipment required
Feta does not require a number of equipment. All it needs is a list of home cheesemaking supplies.
Ingredients
● 1-gallon milk obtained from goat
● ¼ tsp Flora Danica culture or any mesophilic culture
● ¼ tsp strong or mild lipase powder, dissolved in 3 tbs unchlorinated cold water
● ¼ tsp calcium chloride diluted in ¼ cup of unchlorinated cold water
● ¼ tsp liquid rennet diluted in ¼ cup of unchlorinated cold water
● 1-3 tbs of salt
Choice of milk
Initially, the feta was made from milk of sheep or goat but nowadays often cow milk is used, especially those cheese which are available for commercial purposes. The final texture remains similar irrespective of the type of milk used but cow milk fails to bring the original flavour of feta unless a bit of lipase is introduced.
Goat milk possesses lipase naturally and thus feta made from goat milk does not require it to be added additionally. However, if the goat milk being used was pasteurized, then the effects of lipase die out and the flavour does not come. Hence in such cases, the lipase enzyme needs to be added to the milk in order to get the true taste.
When to use Calcium Chloride?
Calcium Chloride (CaCl) is not an ingredient that must be added to make feta but if pasteurized milk is being used, it should be added to obtain a more firm curd. Pasteurized milk is not as beneficial as normal milk as the main benefits of the milk gets reduced. The protein levels are damaged and the amount of calcium is also reduced.
In such cases, when the rennet is added, the curd fails to knit well together. So adding calcium chloride helps in maintaining the calcium balance in the milk and helps the curd to create stronger bonds.
Cheese lacking in calcium is softer and crumbles. So it is important in feta as it provides a different texture to the cheese.
Directions
1. Cleaning the equipment and preparing the recipe:
Before starting to make cheese, you should clean the kitchen and all the equipment like pots and utensils with soap and water. The steam evaporated from boiling water also sanitizes the utensils. The utensils should be allowed to cook for about ten minutes before laying on a clean towel. Now they are ready to be used.
2. Start cooking:
The process of cooking starts by heating the milk. Any temperature between 86 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit is good enough for the mesophilic bacteria to function. Then the Flora Danica should be sprinkled upon the milk, allowed to rehydrate for about a couple of minutes and then stirred well.
The stirring should be done gently so that it mixes well with the milk. If one needs to add lipase powder or calcium chloride, this is the best time. Then the mixture should be covered and allowed to ripen for an hour.
3. Add rennet:
The diluted rennet solution
should next be introduced and stirred well upwards and downwards for about a
minute.
4. Let it settle:
The curd should be allowed to sit for an hour or at least until a clean break can be spotted. A break is that time when a thermometer tip or a knife can easily carve through the curd creating an edge or a break rather than a tear.
5. Cutting the curd:
After a clean break was spotted, the next task is to cut the curd. The curd should be cut into ½” cubes with the help of a sharp knife. Curd knives are the best in this regard which is specially designed for these purposes with sharp edges on both sides and a curved bottom, which would not cause any harm to the pot while gliding smoothly through the curd.
The knife should be placed ½” from the edge of the pot and drawn slowly through the curd. First the slices should be ½” across the pot and then the next slice should intersect the initial slice horizontally. This process should be repeated until the pot is full of rectangular slices.
Next, the knife should be held at a 45-degree angle and cut across the previous lines from the opposite side.
After the cutting is complete, the curd should be stirred gently to float in the whey and any large cubes should be cut into smaller pieces. The same sizes would lead them to lose whey at a similar rate. Vigorous stirring could lead to loss of butterfat, leading to a change of texture of the cheese.
6. Hanging the curds:
The curd should be stirred for about 20 minutes so that matting does not occur. Then it should be poured in a colander lined cheesecloth, tied and hung for about 6 hours to drain.
7. Add salt:
The drained curd should be
brought down and cut into small pieces. Salt can be sprinkled on the surface of
the cheese according to taste. The salt will spread throughout the cheese
within a few days, giving a much better taste and should ideally be stored for
4-5 days in a covered bowl in a refrigerator.
Thus your delicious feta cheese is ready to be served and enjoyed. It is a recipe that can be easily made at home and does not require a long list of ingredients or a number of equipment. But one should be aware that feta cheese can and will go bad if not refrigerated properly.
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