weekend baking

I am what you might call a weekend baker. Aside from cooking dinner with Drew during the week, most of my food projects are done on the weekends, with the Food Network on in the background. 

This past weekend, I started off with blueberry muffins. I have been trying for years (and I use the word trying very loosely here) to find the perfect blueberry muffin recipe. I don't think I'm particularly picky (hmmm, scratch that- I suppose that a picky person doesn't spend years looking for the perfect recipe), but a blueberry muffin needs to be fluffy and moist. Dense, dry muffins are gross, and aren't muffins at all. Muffins also can't be too sweet (I like to eat them for breakfast and not feel guilty about it). For a while, I used the blueberry muffin recipe from Simply Recipes, which produced a good muffin, but not quite what I envisioned.

Lately I've been curious about food science, so I picked up The Science of Good Cooking, brought to us by Cooks Illustrated. This is a really cool cookbook, and I immediately added it to my Amazon wish list. The recipes are for pretty basic dishes, but the geniuses over at Cooks Illustrated have done all this research and experimentation to make sure the recipes are the best. This book contains 50 concepts that are explained simply in digestable (haha, get it?) chapters.

I didn't pick up the cookbook with the intention of making blueberry muffins, but it was the first thing I made.         

I'm pleased to report that my search for the best blueberry muffin recipe is over. These muffins are light and fluffy and chock full of blueberries (as a homemade jam in addition to whole berries). The muffins are baked at a high temperature (425 instead of the usual 350 or 375), which creates a nice, sturdy, buttery exterior that contrasts nicely with the light and fluffy interior.

I also made cheddar-sage waffles. Our go-to recipe for waffles comes from Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian." While his recipes for muffins and pancakes are abysmal (they're supposed to be light and fluffy, damn it!), his waffle recipe isn't bad. I'm not sure if it's the best, but it is the one we keep returning to. This cookbook, as advertised, does tell you how to cook everything vegetarian. 

I added grated cheddar cheese and chopped sage to the batter, and for Sunday brunch, we used the waffles to make egg sandwiches.

And finally, I made ginger walnut granola. I don't recall when I began making granola, but it was sometime last year. Commercial granola is too sweet, so I began making my own, using the recipe from the Homemade Pantry. I made this granola so much that I got tired of it and began searching for alternatives. (If I were Drew, I'd just experiment, but I'm not and I really need a recipe, or at least a template.) Lately, I've been using the recipes (maple walnut, orange cranberry, and now ginger walnut) from the Food in Jars cookbook. Though the author writes a canning blog, she does have some fantastic recipes for granola (and other non-canned foods).