Recipe: Crackling Cheese-Chive Muffins

"Warm and plump as fresh baked muffins..." (Charlotte Pomerantz)

This morning called for something more than cereal or scrambled eggs. The day called for Muffins. So Sister-Bug and I whipped up a batch while Brother-Bug slept in.

Two other excellent reasons to make muffins:

1) You have sour milk. Like I wrote about here, sour milk has a magical effect on the consistency of baked goods like muffins, quick breads, and pancakes. And why waste that potential?

2) Mixing muffins is an easy project to do with a little kid. Muffin batter is very flexible and forgivable. Once you get a general recipe down you can add and subtract, and your toddler can pour in too much baking powder...and you can still save it and come out of the experience (usually) with something edible.

These are our favorite muffins, and a wonderfully flexible recipe. Because they are savory they make a good addition to any meal and I've seen them disappear at many potlucks. My mom made a similar muffin when I was young and I've kept it and adapted it for our days when we just need muffins for breakfast - like today.

I used Lonesome Whistle's Red-Fife Wheat Flour and Buckwheat Flour which gave this particular batch of muffins a particularly rich flavor and a wonderful crumb. The millet is for texture fun (as well as the wonderful nutrition found in millet). As the muffins bake, the millet softens a little and toasts which is what makes these muffins "crackling" - the millet pops while you chew which is really fun! You can use any flour combinations, but at least 1 cup must be a whole grain flour or the texture will be really strange. I like a sharp cheddar and chives best, but only fresh chives. However, any combination of cheese and herbs will work, and it's fun to play with flavor potential.

Sister-Bug considers the implicatons of muffin batter.

What else could you add? Bacon or ham bits? Blue cheese instead of cheddar? Roasted red pepper bits? Flax seeds, bran, wheat germ, or other nutritional delights? Rye flour and caraway seeds? So many possibilities.

It's the fresh chives that really make this recipe so good.

Crackling Cheese-Chive Muffins

2 cups flour (combined whole wheat, other whole grains, and a little white to keep it light)
4 tsp. baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups sour milk or thinned yogurt
2 eggs
1-3 tbl. fresh chives (or other herbs)
2/3 cup millet
1 cup grated cheese (sharp cheddar or ??)
3 tbl. melted butter (or vegetable oil)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the dry ingredients and make a well. Add the milk and eggs and beat throughly. Add the chives, millet, and cheese mixing till just combined. Stir in the butter.

Spoon into muffin tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean - about 20 minutes. Eat warm, eat cold, eat plain, eat with butter... Just eat them quickly before your kids inhale them!

Just coming out of the oven...

Baking in Cast Iron? I always bake my muffins in my cast iron pans. They are a bit of an investment, but they are really worth it! Preheat the pans with the oven and use a basting brush to grease each muffin cup. Spoon in your batter and bake as usual. Because your muffin cups are hot iron, they bake the bottom of the muffin - making the whole muffin crisp around. And as long as you wipe them up right away and don't use soap on your cast iron (EVER), they are clean and back in the cupboard very quickly. 

Pie Crust Tricks

It's time.

Pie Time!!

I love, love, love to make pie, especially the crusts. And, all humility aside, my pie crusts rock. They are buttery, flakey, and oh-so-tasty. They stand up to freezing for later use and they don't get gooey when uneaten pie (or quiche) sits in the fridge.

I have assembled a couple of tricks that make pie crust a breeze in our house, and for a Thanksgiving present, I thought I would share them with you.

Trick One: Put the butter in the freezer while you get ready. This drops the tempeture of the butter so your crust will get less sticky and maintain a better butter/flour crumb.

Trick One-A: I have a food processer, but before I got it I always froze the butter, and then grated it with a cheese grater. (You might have to put it back in the freezer briefly to get it to re-solidify.) Then it is relatively easy to combine it with the flour to get the right consistency. No hacking large hunks of butter down to the right consistency.

Trick Two: Use half water and half vodka to moisten the flour. Add ice cubes to drop the tempeture some more. I don't remember where we learned this, but my husband started this years ago and we've never looked back. The vodka moistens and binds the flour, but doesn't develop the gluten and evaporates away when baked. This is a secret of the super flakey.

Trick Three: Leave enough time to refrigerate twice! Once your dough is mixed, break it into individual crust amounts, wrap in plastic, and put it in the fridge for about 30 mintues to allow the butter to re-solidify. After you roll it out and it's in your pie dish, pop it back into the fridge for at least another 20 minutes before it hits the oven.

Trick Four: ALWAYS par-bake, even if the recipe doesn't call for it! This allows the bottom crust to get a little crispy so it soaks up less pie juice. 5-10 minutes in a 400-degree oven will do it.

Trick Five: This is my favorite. While we are on the subject of par-baking, ditch your pie weights or beans or rice. Poke holes in the crust with a fork to release excess air, then line your pie crust with parchement paper and use pennies as weights! I have a bottle of pennies on my baking shelf that are specifically for pies. Why? The metal heats up in the oven, causing the crust to get crisped bottom and top. Pennies work better than mixed change.

The last thing I have to say about pie crusts...

People think they are tricky. And it's true that they can be. A good crust must be mixed exactly enough and not too much. But I've heard a lot of worry about mixing and pie crust and tricks of the trade. I believe that it is just as easy to over-think a pie crust as it is to over-mix it. Relax. Enjoy. It's magical alchemy and it won't work if you worry about it too much. Just let it flow.