TWD: Buttermilk Crumb Muffins

Tuesdays with Dorie baking through Baking with Julia
by Dorie Greenspan
Contributing Baker: Marion Cunningham




These certainly were easy though prosaic - made for a fun photoshoot but nothing more, sorry to say.

Hopefully our next recipe of "Best-Ever Brownies" will be better. How can they not be?

Success meter (1-3): 1 (UPDATE: The boys tell me they love them - especially the blueberry!)

Warning: Went a little crazy with the pics - new camera :)

The recipe calls for vegetable shortening.

I substituted butter.

Marion instructs you to mix in the shortening [butter] with

your hands. I used a pastry blender so the warmth from

my hands would not melt the butter.

I cut the sugar by half and felt these were sweet enough.

I also used allspice in place of the cinnamon and nutmeg

called for in the recipe. I was a 1/4 cup short of AP flour

so I added whole wheat flour to make up the difference.

As you can see my batter is not nearly

as liquid as in the BWJ video.

If only these turned out as tasty as

they looked like they were going to.

I added blueberries to half of the batter.

No I did not eat the whole thing...

In my opinion these are not worth

the fat and calories.

If you would like to attempt this recipe yourself you can find it on Alisa's blog Easier Than Pie.

Please don't judge this recipe on my opinion only - check out my fellow blogger's results on the TWD website. Look for the Buttermilk Crumb Muffins LYL link.

TWD: Irish Soda Bread

Contributing Baker: Marion Cunningham


                                          Irish Soda Bread

This week I am co-host of Tuesdays with Dorie along with Carla of Chocolate Moosey. One of the privileges of hosting is Carla & I get to post the recipe on our blogs. With such an easy recipe I was worried I would not have much to say ~ surprise!

The book states that this bread does not last past the day it is made. I whipped this up after getting home from a 12 mile hike; this is so easy you can whip it up quickly (only 4 ingredients!) and toss it into the oven to bake while you prepare dinner, and have fresh warm bread to go along with. This is also the perfect recipe if you have young kids around and want to boost there confidence in the kitchen.

I took an un-traditional route and added approximately 1 cup grated Gruyère cheese to the batter and after forming the ball and cutting an X into the top I sprinkled more cheese on top. The finished product resembled in flavor a biscuit and with the added cheese it was so good it was hard to stop eating, even though this bread is heavy and dense and fills you up quickly.

Being that there is only two of us, we were unable to eat the whole loaf though we had no problem devouring half of it. I tossed the other half into the freezer which I took out the very next day since the weather turned cold and I made chicken noodle soup for dinner. Dipping the bread into the broth made it taste like a dumpling ~ and I love dumplings.

I had half of a loaf plus two slices in the bag from the freezer. The slices I wrapped in a paper towel and put into the microwave for about 10-15 seconds and wrapped the rest in foil and heated it in a 375°F oven till warm. The bread tasted fine, as it did the following day sitting on the counter in a Ziploc bag - just a bit drier texture. I toasted up a slice to go with my morning coffee and it was delicious, better in fact! Toasted, this would be really good with scrambled eggs and a great canvas for leftover lekvar for those of you that made it from our previous recipe of rugelach.

There is something to be said about making your own bread; even the more time consuming yeast breads. The aroma while baking, and the warm, tasty goodness of fresh bread from the oven puts you in a state of overwhelming bliss.

Success meter (1-3): 3

The broth soaking into the bread gives it a dumpling like flavor.

Makes wonderful toast even three days later!

Crunchy outside ~ soft and chewy on the inside.

Do make sure to check out Carla's site for her experience with this bread and take a peek at the other bakers of our group; it just may inspire you to purchase a copy of Baking with Julia and bake along with us.