Last week I was excited to use bran from my son Jacob’s flour company, Roaring Fork Mill, to make a classic bran muffin from one of my favorite cookbooks - The Grand Central Baking Book. Recipes from this cookbook never fail me, but as I stirred the batter, it seemed really dry and my baker’s intuition gave me pause. Then I remembered that there was one grated apple in the batter which would provide added moisture. Surely the folks at the Grand Central Baking Company accounted for that and knew what they were doing. Probably true, but the recipe also called for buttermilk, which it turns out I forgot to add! The recipe didn’t fail me, I failed to follow the recipe. The acidity of buttermilk works in partnership with rising agents like baking soda and baking powder to give your baked goods a lift and provide things like muffins and cake with a light, fluffy texture. Some fancy people call this the sponge, or the crumb.
One of the things I love to do is repurpose food because I hate to waste things and I also love the challenge of testing my “baking chops.” The muffins had really good ingredients but the lack of buttermilk meant that they didn’t rise and were incredibly dense. On a whim I decided to crumble them into a bowl and then add them to the the baked overnight oatmeal recipe in The Miller’s Daughter. I was thinking bread pudding in my mind, but also aiming for the toothsome texture of the oatmeal. I chose this recipe because of its adaptability; there are optional additions like flax and chia seeds, so crumbling up a handful of muffins worked really well.
I’m heading into the weekend with plans to cook from Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen by Yasmin Khan. The warm weather has me excited to focus on the various grain salad recipes. Do you have a favorite grain salad?
Re-purposing hockey pucks