English Muffins

Making English muffins reminded me of one reason I love baking so much – it seems magical. Isn’t it amazing how the many things can be made with flour, yeast, water, milk, salt, sugar, and butter? I have been wanting to, but putting off trying to bake English muffins for at least 6 months. For some reason I thought it would be difficult. It wasn’t really. It’s a lot like making a loaf of bread, but the main difference is that English muffins are cooked on the stove. Actually, this recipe is very similar to an Indian naan recipe I use.

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Rye Bread

I know that those of you living in Laos probably don’t have rye flour or caraway seeds, but I just have to share this recipe because I love rye bread. If you want to buy rye flour, you can get it in Udon at the Schmidt bakery supply store. I can’t remember where I got my caraway seed.

Scones in 3 Flavors

 

from left to right: Chocolate Chip Orange, Maple Walnut, Cheddar Garlic

 

I’ve been making scones since a friend gave me a scone cookbook and a scone baking pan a while ago. The book is called Simply Scones and it has a lot of great recipes in it. I would still be using it, except it’s in the US with my brother, I think. The scone pan is great because it helps shape the scones into perfect little wedges. But it’s not that hard to make the same shapes without the pan either. Scones are a pretty simple combination of flour, sugar (usually), salt, baking powder, butter, and milk. After you get the basic technique down, it’s pretty easy to create your own versions by adding different flavorings to the basic dough (nuts, cheese, spices, cocoa powder, chocolate chips, dried fruits, juices instead of milk, flavor extracts . . . ).

So today I made 3 kinds of scones. I made Chocolate Chip Orange Scones from one of my favorite recipes and then I adapted that recipe to make Maple Pecan and Cheddar Garlic scones. You may also be interested in my recipe for Apple Cheddar Scones.

Hummus and Pita Bread

Hummus is something I’ve been making since college. It’s so much cheaper (and not much more difficult) to make it yourself instead of buying it. The following hummus recipe is based on one from a roommate’s mom, who is Greek I believe.

I didn’t try making my own pitas until I moved to Laos, where there aren’t any. I found that making pitas takes about as much skill as making any other bread, but the baking part takes longer because they take up a lot of room spread out in the oven. I was amazed that pita bread makes its own pocket if it’s rolled out right and baked at the right temperature. About 1/3 of mine usually end up without a pocket, but that’s okay because they’re mostly for dipping in hummus anyway. Here’s the pita recipe that I use.

Mango Shortcake with Ginger Whipped Cream

On Tuesday, we celebrated my friends Kim’s birthday by having a picnic under the stars by a pond on a moonless night with fireflies all around. It was beautiful! The hostess of the picnic asked me to bring any dessert except cake because Kim would have already eaten cake many times that day. I wanted to bring something special, so I decided on mango shortcake. The mangoes are delicious right now!

In Search of Grandma’s Dinner Rolls

My grandma is well-known for her rolls. Everyone looked forward to eating them at family gatherings. I don’t actually have a recipe for her rolls because she doesn’t use a recipe. She just knows how to make them because she’s done it so many times.

One of her sons once videotaped her making rolls and cinnamon rolls so that we could learn how she does it. When I last watched that video, I had never made bread before, so I didn’t know what to observe. I’d like to watch it again and see if I can learn more. Until then, I’ll just try re-inventing the recipe on my own.

If any family members are reading this and have some suggestions, please let me know! Do you remember Grandma using an egg? I don’t, but I could have missed it.

Pizza Crust

pesto bacon pizza

There is one place in town that makes pizza and I used to think it was good until I realized that it’s not that difficult (and much cheaper) to make pizza myself. The main problem with the restaurant’s pizza is that they use ketchup for pizza sauce and that’s just wrong! Their crust could use a little work too.

I use this amount of crust for 1 medium pizza, but it could be made into 2 smaller pizzas as well. I like the thick chewiness of this crust.