English Muffins

What a baking frenzy evening we had last night! In our tiny kitchen, cookies and English Muffins at the same time. What a MESS! And, oh, so yummy!

I was inspired to try some yeast products this weekend by Heather and her crumpets, and Coffeegrl and her Artisan Bread. I hope to also make those crumpets, artisan bread as well as bagels! I've made bagels and crumpets before...in Japan...many many years ago. I look forward to trying them again. And, the artisan bread? We'll see if I can do it.

Along with the yeast products, I plan a batch of oatmeal banana chocolate chip cookies and a batch of scones 1/2 with candied dekopon, 1/2 with candied ginger with ginger sugar on top. Mmmm! I wonder how long my energy and frenzy will really last!

On to the English Muffins. I decided to try these because my crumpet recipe describes crumpets as kind of a non-turned over pancake or kind of like an English Muffin. And I thought - ENGLISH MUFFIN? I've never thought of making those. I found a few recipes, and chose this one because the picture looked so yummy! With one little change, we had great English Muffins for breakfast this morning. Ryu said, "They look like English Muffins!" Well, there you go!

ENGLISH MUFFINS

This recipe called for two beaten egg whites. HAHAHAHA! I don't own a mixer and beating egg whites must have a purpose greater than mixing them into bread with a ton of flour. So, I substituted those egg whites with a whole egg and that was that! Worked fine.

Here is another interesting recipe for English Muffins from Alton Brown at the Food Network (in terms of the cooking method). However, I don't have cooking rings or tin cans to use in their place, so...I did the cookie cutter method above. But, this recipe looks like it takes less time, so next time...I'll probably try it!

Dilly Casserole Bread

I should be a wonderful bread baker. Both of my grandmothers and my mom baked bread a lot. Unfortunately, I guess I wasn't around for the mixing, only the eating. So, while I know some of the basics, I have no confidence whatsoever in baking bread.

When I was a kid I helped Grandma Mary bake this no-knead bread. When she pulled the cottage cheese out of the fridge and heated it up on the stove, I thought she was crazy. And, what are dill seeds!!?!?!?!!

This is the first recipe in the yellow 25 Cent recipe pamphlet from Red Star Yeast titled Spring and Summer Fun with Yeast. Under the title of Dilly Casserole Bread is the phrase (Adapted by Ann Pillsbury). As the pamphlet is undated and I was curious, I looked around on the internet. It turns out that this recipe was the winner of the 1960 Pillsbury Bake-Off! Who knew?

Please click the link to get the recipe straight from Pillsbury's website!

Dilly Casserole Bread

NOTE: Cottage cheese is pretty spendy here and comes in tiny little containers, and is just ... different. So, I washed up Ryu's drip coffee pot, put a new filter in and filled it with plain yogurt. After draining it really well, I used it in place of the cottage cheese. Probably 1 1/2 cups of yogurt drains down to 1 cup. I'd let it sit longer than I did, so I recommend overnight - if your hubby or you don't NEED the coffee pot before then!

My Japanese friends thought the bread was "interesting". My husband begged me not to force him to finish his piece. I guess dill is an acquired taste. So, I am force feeding it to Jun. Just kidding. Kind of!