Fruited Buttermilk Muffins, or "Sometimes you're the windscreen, sometimes you're the bug.)
I always try to be very truthful on here in the English Kitchen. For one thing you don't get highly edited photographs. Everything I show you is pretty much just as it is in reality. Sometimes you even catch a glimpse of the chaos surrounding the carefully (as if) set up photo!
There have been complaints before that people can see my laundry drying, or the dog looking on over in the corner, etc. That's because I am a realist and I like to present things to the world just as they are.
I am not perfect, nor is anyone and I would hate for the world to think that I am. I just could not live with myself if I thought I was presenting something totally unreal to my readers. What you see is exactly what you get.
And that is real recipes, cooked, baked, photographed in real time and under real conditions. Its just one of my quirks. And always I try to present to you recipes which work and you can rely and depend upon.
I am a realist myself and I get really annoyed when I go to other pages and try recipes and end up having wasted until amounts of cash on things which were never going to turn out. REALLY annoyed.
I cannot impress you with that enough. It really burns my butt!!
By the same token it really annoys me when someone tries one of my recipes and then they come back and say, this recipe is crapola. I added this, and took out that because we don't like it, I lowered this, etc. etc. but it didn't turn out!
In short, when they have totally messed with the integrity of a recipe and then complain that the recipe didn't work for them.
These are really, really good muffins. They are delicious muffins. Moist. Tasty. With a beautiful crumb.
Filled with lovely bits of whatever fruit you want to stir into them. Today I used chopped peaches, strawberries and blueberries. Frozen ones.
My brother was going to come over this morning and help me cancel my credit card in the UK. I was having a dickens of a time cancelling it. I've been trying since November.
Although I had not used it since November, my biggest fear was that when it expired, the new one would go to my old house and be stolen. So he said he could help me and actually he did! Problem sorted! Yay!!
I really, really wanted to give them some nice baked muffins when they came over this morning. So I baked these Fruited Buttermilk Muffins. Usually they work really well, but I have never baked them in a glass baking dish before.
All I have is the glass dish here in Canada and muffin papers don't fit into it. I figured if I buttered/sprayed it really well, there would not be a problem. WRONG!
They came out of the oven looking alright, maybe not as tall as they usually are, they did spread out a bit, but they still looked nice.
The problem came when I went to flip them out of my pan. STUCK. STUCK. STUCK!! They could not have been more stuck if they tried!
The tops came off beautifully. The bottoms stayed in the pan. In fact I had to use a spoon to dig hem out.
I am not sure if its because today I cut the recipe in half, or if it was because of the pan itself. In any case, I had egg on my face. That makes two things I have cooked for them that have come out badly. My reputation is taking a kicking here!
So here I am on Friday the 13th and my birthday no less, showing you destroyed muffins. Why? Because I always want to be truthful and let you know that I don't always get things right myself. Sometimes I fail abysmally. This is one of those times.
Don't reduce the recipe by half. Don't bake them without papers. Do enjoy, because even though the bottoms were destroyed, we did enjoy the tops. Not all was lost. Sometimes you just have to laugh, lol
I hope you won't let my bad experience spoil yours. Do try the muffins as written in below recipe, without any alterations, and I can promise you, you will have a tasty muffin to enjoy. Moist and delicious and filled with fruit.
Fruited Buttermilk Muffins (small batch)
Yield: Makes 12 muffins
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 30 MinTotal time: 40 Min
These are delicious muffins. Filled with fruit. You decide which kind. Just make sure you line your muffin tin with paper liners, because they will stick.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil
- 1 1/3 cup (270g) soft light brown sugar, packed
- 1 TBS finely grated lemon zest
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
- 1 large free range egg
- 2 1/2 cups (350g) all purpose plain flour (you may need an additional 1/4 cup/35g)
- pinch salt
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fruit
To top:
- 4 TBS soft light brown sugar, divided
- 8 TBS chopped toasted walnuts, divided
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400*F/ 200*C/ gas mark 6. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. (You may even want to spray the paper with non-stick cooking spray.)
- Whisk the brown sugar and oil together in a bowl. Stir in the lemon zest, vanilla and egg yolk until thoroughly combined. Stir in the buttermilk.
- Sift together the flour, soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet, just until combined. Fold in the chopped fruit. If you think the mixture is too loose, add some additional flour to make the batter a bit stiffer.
- Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin cups.
- Sprinkle the brown sugar over each, along with the walnuts, dividing it equally.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350*F/180*C/ gas mark 4. Bake for a further 15 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before tipping them out onto a wire rack. Best eaten on the day.
The recipe I am sharing with you today for an Old Fashioned Molasses Cookie is one which has been in my family for years and years. I fear if I don't document it here, it will be lost forever.
This is a tried and true (through several generations) recipe for old fashioned rolled molasses cookies. This is the recipe our great grandmothers would have used. It was certainly the recipe my great grandmother used.
The original recipe was written in my grandmother's hand written scrawl on the back of an envelope and tucked into my mother's old red Lawrencetown co-op cook book. There were no instructions on how to make them.
No instructions on how to bake them, and the measurements for the ingredients were rather vague. For instance it says simply, enough flour to make a stiff dough.
It was very much taken for granted in those days that a girl would know how to cook, at least the most basic things anyways. Most were taught at their mother's knees how to do these things and they would have started cooking at a very young age.
I have many, many fond memories of my Grammy Woodworth making these cookies. She would let me stand on a chair at the counter and help her. What a blessing to have these precious memories.
My mother, bless her heart, had not the patience nor the tolerance for little hands helping with the cooking. We were free to watch from a distance, but not to participate or to get in the way.
That's just the way it was. We never questioned it, and we never minded enjoying the fruits of her labors.
Mom only ever really made two kinds of cookies. These and her Butterscotch Cookies. You can find that recipe by clicking on the name of the cookie. They are a slice and bake cookie and very good.
At Christmas she might bake us some shortbread cookies, and occasionally she would make her cousin Lydia's Junior Cookies. Again click on the name. These spicy drop cookies were always a real favorite of mine.
I checked online to see if there were many recipes for molasses cookies such as this one to be found. All I found pretty much were recipes for the type you roll into balls and then into sugar.
These are the cookies I always knew as Molasses Crinkles. If I had a dollar for every one of those I have baked through the years, I would be able to retire.
They were a real favorite with my children, but then again so were these. My father loves these as well. So he will help me to eat these for sure.
He has been asking me to bake him some molasses cookies for a few weeks now. I love that I am in a place now where I can do these things for my father.
I can't really do much for my father as my sister does most of what he needs doing, but I can do the odd thing for him like this.
Little things do mean a lot, and to be honest I suffer so much from arthritis it is probably better this way anyways, as much as I would like to do more. My heart is willing and all that, but my body lets me down.
I have some days when I can walk for England, and others where I can barely hobble from my chair to the bed. Getting older is not for the faint of heart, that's for sure.
I don't think the damp climate in the UK did me much good, so maybe it will improve now I am back here, or maybe the damage is done. Time will tell.
Back to the cookies. Mom always baked a tin of these when we came home for a visit. You could count on it, and they were one of the first things we looked for.
She would bake these cookies, and we could look forward to having home baked beans at least once, her homemade pea soup, (the French-Canadian version with the whole yellow peas) and wiener rolls.
Weiner rolls were our family's version of sausage rolls. Mom would make pastry and roll it out, cutting it into rectangles large enough to wrap around the wieners.
Each rectangle would be spread with North American mustard and then wrapped around the wieners, pressed shut and then baked until the pastry was golden brown.
Oh but that wasn't half a treat for us! Oh my. If wiener rolls were on the menu when I was a child, I was in seventh heaven.
I am going to make some tomorrow actually. My brother loves them as well, so tomorrow I am going to make some homemade baked beans (In the crock pot, a first for me) and weiner rolls.
Weiner rolls are not something any of us eat very often these days. Let's face it, you are taking fatty hot dogs (even though I use all beef) and wrapping them in something else fatty, so not the healthiest of foods.
None of that prepacked weiner wrap stuff for us! We like them with real pastry. It's the only way to go.
I did make some wiener rolls a few weeks back when Eileen and Tim were coming over. Our Eileen really loves them too, but never gets to have them.
They were a rare treat for both of us and Tim, too, although I did have to make his without mustard.
Anyways, these cookies . . . sorry I got distracted, which seems to happen very easily. You will love these. They are like soft molasses pillows. Sweet bit not too sweet.
They go perfectly with cold glasses of milk but are as equally at home being dunked into hot cups of tea. I dare say they would even make great ice cream sandwich covers, if you know what I mean.
Two molasses cookies put together with a nice thick layer of vanilla ice cream in the middle. What could ever be wrong about that!!
Family food traditions are as individual as families, and every family has them. My father's mother made them crepes instead of pancakes and they all loved to eat flaky pastry with Vachon caramel and thick cream.
What are some of your family food traditions? I would be truly fascinated to hear them. Lets share!!
Old Fashioned Molasses Cookies (small batch)
Yield: Makes about 2 dozen cookies
Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 12 MinTotal time: 27 Min
Handed down through four generations of women in my family, this is the cookie that would have always held place of pride in the larder. Wonderfully fragrant when they are baking, a couple of these and a tall glass of cold milk are a truly special treat. I have small batched the original recipe.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup (95g) sugar
- 1/2 cup (120ml) molasses (see note)
- 1/2 cup (110g) vegetable shortening, melted
- 1 medium free range egg
- 2 teaspoons of ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 teaspoons of baking soda, stirred into 1/4 cup (60ml) of hot water
- enough flour to make a stiff dough (approximately 2 - 2 1/2 cups/280g-330 grams)
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 375*F/ 190*C. Lightly grease several baking sheets and set aside.
- Put the sugar and the molasses into a large bowl. Pour the hot fat over them and mix it all together very well. Allow it to cool until it is just warm to the touch and then beat in the egg.
- Mix in the ginger and the salt, along with the water and soda. Stir in the flour a little at a time until it is all incorporated. No amount of flour was given in the original recipe but I find that it ranges anywhere between 2 and 2 1/2 cups. (not including the flour for rolling.)This seems to depend on the weather and humidity. Some days 2 cups is enough and others I need more. You need a dough that is pliable without being sticky.
- Dust the counter with some flour and roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut into rounds with a floured 3 1/2 inch fluted cookie cutter.
- Place onto the greased baking sheets, leaving 2 inches of space in between each. Gather the scraps and re-roll until all the dough is used up.
- Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until dry to the touch and lightly browned on the bottom. Don't overbake. They should be nice and soft to the bite. Delicious!
Notes:
In the UK, molasses can be hard to come by. I find a suitable substitute to be to use half dark treacle and half golden syrup.
The North American has long been in love with the combination of sweet and salty. It was something my last husband never understood, this compulsion to combine sweet with salty.
Jam and peanut butter sandwiches. Chocolate cover pretzels. Bananas dipped in chocolate . . . wait that is sweet/sweet. Never mind. LOL I am a fan of that too!
As many of you know I have family visiting this week. My brother David, whom I have not seen in 8 years, and his sweet wife Christine whom I have not seen in 18 years.
It is a cause for celebration for sure. Who knows when it will happen again. None of us are getting any younger and as you get older travel becomes complicated at best, and then there is Covid.
Things are a bit more open at the moment if you are fully vaccinated, but who knows when that situation will reverse itself.
I have wanted to make them a few treats while they are here. My sister and I are splitting the meals and today is my turn to cook supper. I am doing a curry. (A pot pie for my die hard dad who won't try new things.)
I wanted to make a special treat as well. I love chocolate dipped potato chips, well anything salty to dip in chocolate really.
But then I spied these delicious delights on a blog called My Kitchen Escapades. Ruffles with ridges? Count me in!
Melted Caramel? YUM! Topped with melted chocolate? Double YUM!! Dipped in peanuts. Well flip me over, I am done!! TRIPLE YUM!!!
Not only are they simple and easy to make, but they are gluten free, and there is no real cooking involved.
Not unless you count melting things in the microwave as cooking and I don't. So your kitchen also stays cool.
If only they were sugar, fat and calorie free as well, but oh well. You can't have everything!
The hardest part of making these is staying away from them until your guests have arrived. I have already snuffled up three without even blinking an eye. They are now under lock and key.
You want to use plain salted ruffled chips for these, unless you are really going for a strange flavor combination, but who am I to judge. I used the ones with double crisp ridges. Nothing wimpy here.
I did use Kraft Caramels for the toffee bit, but you could also use Werther's soft caramels if that is all you can find. What you do not want to be using is Dulce de leche or caramel ice cream topping.
You want a caramel that will melt enough to spread, but then solidify once cold. ie. stay on the chips.
Dulce de leche or caramel topping just would not do that. If you start with a solid and melt it with heat. It will go back to solid once cold. Its simple chemistry.
So you melt the caramel in the microwave and then spread it onto 1/2 of each potato chips. You will need about 25 chips. (Not counting the ones you eat while you are making these.)
Just spread it in a thin layer. It will become quite chewy once it solidifies, and you don't want to take out anyone's fillings. I dare say that wouldn't make you very popular.
The chocolate chips melt very easily in the microwave as well. My microwave only takes about 1 minute total on high.
I cook them for thirty seconds, give them a stir and then 30 more and they are pretty much ready. If you leave them to sit for a few they will melt even more.
Be very careful not to over cook them (or the caramel) in the microwave. There is no coming back from that. Its best to just to 30 second intervals and stir.
You might be surprised at how quickly these things melt.
Once your chocolate is melted you can either spread or dip your toffee covered potato chips with it. I chose to dip.
If you dip you get a bit more on each chip, and I am greedy like that. You don't want to be totally covering your toffee either.
Its nice if people can see some of the toffee so they know what a treat they are in for. I only dipped them, toffee side down to cover about half of the toffee.
I thought that was perfect. Well, it was perfect for me anyways.
Have your peanuts chopped and ready to go. I used some dry roasted salted peanuts. I just put them into a plastic measuring cup and snip away at them with my kitchen scissors.
That way you get a multitude of sizes from tiny chops to large to almost full sized halves. Variety is the spice of life after all.
You can either sprinkle the chopped nuts onto the melted chocolate, or dip the chocolate into the nuts.
I sprinkled some and dipped some. That's because I was getting lazy towards the end and had a bazillion other things to do.
I liked the different appearance of each. With some small peanut bits, some larger bits.
The dipped ones had peanuts all over the end, the sprinkled had peanuts just on top. All were incredibly edibly scrumptious looking.
I was really happy with how they turned out and even happier with the taste. This is one really delicious snack. I can see it would be very popular during the holidays when you have guests around and I am really hoping that this year we will be able to do at least a bit of entertaining, at least family-wise.
I am anxious to see all of my children and my grandchildren.
I would say about the only drawback about these is that I don't think they will keep more than one day. I think the chips may get soggy, but in all honesty? I don't think these will be around for more than one day! Enjoy!
Toffee, Chocolate and Peanut Dipped Potato Chips
Yield: Makes 5 servings
Cook time: 10 MinTotal time: 10 Min
Incredibly moreish. Rich, chocolaty, crunchy, chewy, salty sweet.
Ingredients
- 25 thick rippled plain salted potato chips
- 15 soft toffees, or caramels
- 1 tsp water
- 3.5 ounces (100g) semi sweet chocolate chips
- 1/4 tsp coconut oil or white vegetable shortening
- coarsely chopped peanuts to garnish (about 4 TBS)
Instructions
- Lay your potato chips out in a single layer on a wire rack. Leave space between them. (I try to pick potato chips that are fairly uniform in size.)
- Unwrap the caramel/toffees and place them into a bowl along with the tsp of water. Microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on the strength of your microwave. Stir to combine and melt.
- Using a spoon spread a thin layer of the melted caramel over 1/2 half of the surface of each potato chip.
- Place the chocolate chips into another bowl along with the coconut oil. Microwave on high for about 1 minute, at 30 second intervals. Stirring after each until they are melted.
- Dip the top of the caramel side of each potato chip partially into the melted chocolate, leaving a bit of the caramel showing. Sprinkle with peanuts. Set on the wire rack to harden and firm everything up.
- These are best on the day.
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