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| Chocolate chip muffins |
To finish out the holiday weekend, I threw together some chocolate chip muffins as a breakfast treat for the kiddos visiting since they were hitting the road for the drive home. Basic Joy of Cooking recipe and some Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips. It made the house smell great and a warm chocolate chip muffin with a cup of coffee is a great way to start the day.
I also was in the market for some rye bread. However, every time I tried to pick up a loaf at the Co-op, they were out. Apparently I never go to the store at the right time for the bread that I want. Well, why not make some instead?! I turned to my Scandinavian cookbooks for some guidance and, sure enough, there was a great recipe for some sourdough rye. Instead of making a rye flour biga, I just used some of the sourdough starter that resides in our fridge (it's name is Kenneth). The dough was very wet and required an overnight rise in the fridge. There was a mega-typo in the cookbook involving the amount of water that I assume as an error in transcription of the imperial units after conversion from metric. Specifically, the metric called for 785 mL water, but the imperial called for 8 1/3 cups of water. Luckily, I was suspicious of the vast amount of water and used the metric amount anyhow. I let the dough rise for 20 hours rather than 8 hours which may have impacted the gluten structure. One loaf had a bit of a blowout, but the other loaf turned out fairly well.
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| Loaf 1. Mood: Grumpy vs silly |
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| Loaf 2. Less grumpy |
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| Maple and star anise cookies |
Finally, I was in the mood to make some cookies. The fall-like weather had me in the mood for some maple flavored treats. I decided to test out the maple-star anise cookies from Dorie Greenspan's delectable tome. I was a bit skeptical since I am not a fan of licorice flavored things, but these cookies were surprisingly delicious. I used a bit of orange oil rather than zest, but otherwise did not stray from the directions. Rolling the cookies in sparkling sugar gave them a nice shimmer as well as crunch. The star anise worked really well when tempered with the maple syrup, and the flavor was reminiscent of the "umbrella cookies" that I would get as a treat when I was a kid. As I think about it more, I guess I don't mind the flavors of star anise or tarragon, but black licorice is really not my jam. At any rate, some of the cookies made it to the first day of Fall league for my frisbee teammates. They appear to be have been a hit with adults and kids alike.
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