Рецепт Whole Wheat & Honey English Muffin Bread with Cranberry Apple Butter
Whole Wheat & Honey English Muffin Bread with Cranberry Apple Butter
This month’s #Baketogether challenge with Abby Dodge seemed easy enough but it’s the holiday season and nothing is easy during the holidays is it? So many obligations it can feel like anything but ‘holidayish’ and I’m reminded that we all need to take some time to breathe and remember to treasure the season. Making our family festivities just a bit more crazed are the birthdays that come along for the ride. My daughter’s birthday was last Monday and mine on Monday of this week. As it turned out, Em had taken the day off on mine so though very impromptu we ended up spending most of the day in the kitchen making some goodies for holiday gift giving. My idea of a perfect day.
What did we make? Emily made a truly fabulous Eggnog Bread that will be featured next Monday (she even wrote the post for me…the perfect birthday present!) and I spent most of the day stirring gallons of goat milk as we prepared cajeta (really dulce de leche but made with goat milk) which we’ll package and give as gifts to everyone we know (except you Karen; I haven’t forgotten!). I decided to work on the #Baketogether challenge; it seemed very quick and easy and would have been (and been more successful) if I had just not messed with it so much!
I thought it might be interesting to try and make something with the texture of English muffins but in bread form. I found a recipe to work with on Foodie With Family’s website and I was off! I decided to make my loaves part whole wheat and substitute Rebecca’s sugar ingredient with honey and those were good choices. My downfall was the genius idea of making it a Cinnamon Swirl loaf. It wasn’t all that hard to incorporate the layer of cinnamon and sugar but I think in hindsight that the effort of flattening the dough into a rectangular shape, even though every so lightly, to allow me to sprinkle on the cinnamon/sugar combination messed too much with the air pockets. Adding insult to injury was the fact that in an effort to not manipulate the dough too much, I don’t think the cinnamon was spread through the dough adequately; the majority of it was in one area which sort of left this big hole in the bread; another big negative in my book. A bunch of little holes? Good. One big cinnamon and sugar hole? Bad. The scent was great as it baked but the end result just felt lacking and I did something I seldom do; a redo…yes, that’s right. Groundhog day.
That was a good thing. English muffins develop those adorable little holes everywhere from the dough having a lot of yeast; the yeast bubbles into fairly good sized bubbles and create those fissures and holes that we all love because they hold the yumminess of butter and/or whatever else we love to put on our muffins. I won’t deny; my challenges at altitude will most likely see better results as I do this again; the air pockets could have been larger so I think I need to start the baking process a bit sooner than the directions state; pretty sure those babes deflated a bit before I got the dough in the oven!
I also changed up what I used to oil the bread pans. Yesterday’s effort was coming to a close later in the day and I was in a hurry to finish up so I sprayed some oil in the bread pans before dusting them with corn meal. Except some pieces didn’t get dusted; they got a bit more assaulted with corn meal. I don’t love that spray stuff anyhow and was reminded of one big reason why. Lack of quality control. Spreading butter using a paper towel assures me of a more consistent finish; using the spray product yielded some areas of the crust that apparently had the spray ‘glop’ a bit and resulted in the cornmeal that is dusted in the pans create a thick piece of corn meal that we felt was not a pleasant addition to the crust. When I punted? Even layer of butter, even layer of cornmeal and much more even layer of overall goodness! If you do want to use a spray; just be sure to use a paper towel and wipe the inside of your pan to assure the same thing doesn’t happen.
With the cinnamon sugar effort not quite up to prime time; what could I add to make this more unique than just a plain piece of toast. I had one of those light bulb moments; as a kid I used to love apple butter on my English muffins and I had apples. But 5 apples does not make it worth it so I went on a hunt and what did I spy? Half of a huge bag of cranberries left over from Thanksgiving. Why not right? I just LOVE this cranberry/apple butter; the same smooth texture of apple butter with a bit of added zing and a lot of color and a perfect compliment to a crispy English ‘muffin’ bread slice. This combination of a loaf of bread and some fruit butter will make a great gift for some of my friends; it was simply meant to be. I can not deny that part of the amazing goodness of this toast was in the preparation. Forgo your toaster oven and grill these slices on a griddle with some butter until browned. You will not regret it.
No apples or cranberries? Well, just for my readers I did a test with my usual suspect. I love honey on toast and this did not disappoint. Little pockets of butter and honey on a pan fried crispy piece of toast? Oh yeah.
Whole Wheat and Honey English Muffin Bread with Cranberry Apple Butter
Bread with the look and feel of English Muffins...just a bit easier to make!
Ingredients
- 2 3/4 cups warm water
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 & 1/2 Tbsp honey
- 1 Tbsp plus 1 & 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (about 1 & 1/2 packages)
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 & 3/4 cups wheat flour
- 2 Tbsp melted butter for brushing tops during and after baking
- Cornmeal to coat inside of pans
Preparation
Stir all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or by hand just until combined. The dough will be shaggy and very sticky.
Cover the dough with a towel and let it rise in a warm, draft-free place for about an hour or until it looks bubbly and puffy.
Spray 2 standard loaf pans (8.5" x 9.5") with non-stick cooking spray; wipe with paper towel to eliminate any excess and then dust with inside of the pans with a thin layer of cornmeal.
Spray your hands with non-stick cooking spray and use them to divide the dough evenly between the pans. The pans should be no more than halfway full.
Cover pans and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until the dough looks bubbly and puffy again, and has risen with the top of the dough dome just peeking above the edge of the pan.
Halfway through the 2nd rise, preheat the oven to 350°F; this dough can rise too much and the air bubbles deflate so make sure your oven is ready when the 2nd rise is complete.
Bake for 30 minutes, remove one at a time from the oven, brush the top with melted butter and then rotate the pan before putting back into the oven. Repeat with the 2nd pan.
Bake for an additional 10 minutes or until they are just lightly golden brown.
Immediately turn the loaves out onto a cooling rack and brush again with melted butter. Cool completely before slicing.
Store the bread, tightly wrapped, at room temperature for up to a week or up to 3 months in the freezer.
2.0
http://www.creative-culinary.com/2012/12/whole-wheat-english-muffin-bread-with-cranberry-apple-butter/
This recipe brought to you by © Creative Culinary | A Food and Cocktail Blog | Website: www.creative-culinary.com
Cranberry Apple Butter
A colorful and lively mixture of cranberries and apples makes a fabulous fruit butter.
Ingredients
2 lbs cooking apples, cored and sliced into chunks
1 lb fresh cranberries
1 cup apple cider
Juice of one lemon
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
Preparation
Put the apples, cranberries and the cup of apple cider into a large pan and cook over medium heat until the cranberries have burst and the apples pieces are soft.
Remove from heat and in two processes, blend or process the mix until smooth. Return mixture to pan and add all remaining ingredients.
Cook on low heat for approximately an hour until mixture is thick and no longer drips off of a spoon.
Spoon into jars; process in a hot water bath for shelf storage (15 minutes for 6 oz jars) or store in the fridge.
Notes
I did not peel my apples and blended everything in a Blendtec blender; you may want to remove the peel if you are using a food processor on the fruit as it may not adequately pulverize all of the skin.
2.0
http://www.creative-culinary.com/2012/12/whole-wheat-english-muffin-bread-with-cranberry-apple-butter/
This recipe brought to you by © Creative Culinary | A Food and Cocktail Blog | Website: www.creative-culinary.com