Dusting Off the Cookbooks

[BakerAunt]

Perhaps it is time for all of us to once again delve into the cookbooks lining our shelves which we rarely or have never opened? I'll submit my effort of this morning here. I would be interested in what others have to say about the spices, which I will reduce when I bake these muffins again.

I baked a new recipe on Wednesday morning: "Pumpkin Muffins with Crystallized Ginger," which appears in Year Around Cookbook, by Sarah Leah Chase (New York: Tess Press, an imprint of Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1990), pp. 262-263. It combines two of her cookbooks, Nantucket Open-House Cookbook and Cold Weather Cookbook that sprang out of her Nantucket shop, Que Sera Sarah. I picked it up in 2001 on sale at a bookstore but had never cooked any of the recipes. I was looking for a new pumpkin muffin recipe (and they are surprisingly not easy to find) and decided to try this one, as I have apple cider on hand. As always, I made some changes. I halved the recipe, which made a nice dozen muffins, not the 13-14 the recipe noted, but muffin pans vary in size. Here are the ingredients from the halved recipe with my changes:
1 ¾ cup AP flour (I substituted whole wheat flour)
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt (I reduced it to ¼ tsp.)
2 ¼ tsp. cinnamon (I reduced to 2 tsp.)
2 ¼ tsp. ginger (I reduced to 2 tsp.)
½ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cloves
2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder (I added)
1 Tbs. flax meal (I added)

7.5 oz. canned pumpkin puree (I used my homemade pumpkin puree)
1 cup light brown sugar (I reduced it to ½ cup)
½ cup (one stick) unsalted margarine, melted (I substituted 1/3 cup canola oil)
2 large eggs
¼ cup apple cider
½ cup minced crystalized ginger (I added to the combined wet ingredients rather than adding at the end of mixing.)

I whisked together the wet ingredients in a bowl, then added the combined dry ingredients. I baked, with sprayed muffin liners in the pan at 350 F for a little more than 18 minutes, when they tested done, not the 20-25 minutes in the recipe.

I had wondered about the amount of cinnamon and ginger, but as I was using whole wheat flour, I just reduced each by ¼ tsp. After eating two warm muffins for breakfast with my coffee, I would cut back the cinnamon and the ginger to 1 tsp. each, as I think they overwhelm the pumpkin and the cider. It is as if the recipe developer wanted to cover up the pumpkin taste! I don't usually bake a recipe again so soon, but when we finish eating these muffins, I will try the recipe again with less spice. I need to do it while the apple cider is still good.

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[cwcdesign]

BA I have both the Open House and Cold Weather cookbooks which are dog eared from much use. I was curious to see if Sarah had made changes to her muffin recipe for the cookbook you have - it was in Open House and there were no changes. I might have to try that one

[navlys]

I had both of those cookbooks. The operative word is"had". I just looked through my remaining cookbooks and realized I still have way too many and several of them have loose recipes stuck in them too. I know I really liked Sara's recipes but I can't recall which ones. When I start looking at some of the recipes I wonder why I am still collecting recipes on line?

[BakerAunt]

I baked the pumpkin muffins again, with my changes. This time, I used 3/4 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. allspice, and 1/8 tsp. cloves, as these are the spices I use when I make spiced hot cider. We definitely prefer the recipe with these spices in these amounts.

I'm not that impressed with the cookbooks so far, although I plan to try another recipe with cranberry and dried fig muffins. Most of the recipes call for a lot of butter, which is not in my diet these days, as well as a lot of ingredients that I do not have in my kitchen, and I tend to think my kitchen is reasonably well stocked.

I also baked a zucchini quiche this evening from a Williams-Sonoma recipe that I have been meaning to try for years.

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