The Baking Answer Book (18 page)

2 large eggs

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

6 dried dates, pitted and chopped

1.
To make the sauce, combine the cream, brown sugar, butter, and salt in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Turn down the heat to medium low and simmer until reduced by half, about 15 minutes. Set aside.

2.
To make the cake, grease a 6-cup microwave-safe bowl. Cream the butter and brown sugar in a large bowl until fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir in the dates.

3.
Scrape the batter into the prepared dish and cover with plastic wrap. Microwave on HIGH until just set, 3 to 8 minutes. Remove from the microwave and let stand 5 minutes. Overturn onto a serving platter, pour the sauce over the cake, and serve.

Q
Is it possible to make real baked goods in a microwave oven?

A
Most bakers completely reject the microwave oven for “real” baking, relegating it to prep tasks like melting chocolate and butter. If you’ve tried to bake a cake in the microwave, you know why. Because of the way a microwave oven heats food, doughs and batters don’t develop a delicious outer crust enclosing a tender interior. Instead, a cake batter baked in a microwave will set up, but its surface will remain moist and sticky while its interior becomes spongy.

It helps to know a little bit about how a microwave cooks to understand this unpleasant effect. Contrary to popular belief, the microwave oven does not simply cook foods “from the inside out.” Rather, it emits microwaves that are absorbed by the food. The energy contained in the microwaves causes molecules inside the food to start spinning, producing friction, which produces heat. This heat, generated by the food itself, is responsible for the cooking. Conventional ovens, in contrast, have a heat source of their own. The heat from the heating element gradually heats food through, evaporating surface moisture as it penetrates to the interior of a cake and produces the exterior browning valued in most baked goods.

If you are intent on baking in your microwave, stick to recipes that don’t rely on browning. Probably your best bet is a pudding cake, which can be simply a very soft cake encasing some molten batter that becomes a sauce when the surface is broken with a spoon, or a spongy confection covered by a gooey sauce that’s made separately on the stove.

CHAPTER 5
Quick Breads, Muffins, Scones & Biscuits

Recipes for quick breads were developed in the nineteenth century to make use of newly invented chemical leaveners. Breads made with these leaveners were remarkably easy to make, requiring no kneading and no rising time, and relatively little baking time compared with yeast breads. At the time, baking soda and baking powder were seen as signs of great progress, and some bakers thought these leaveners would replace yeast entirely before the century was over. Although baking with yeast has hardly become obsolete, quick breads have remained popular because of their simplicity and versatility. In this chapter, we’ll clear up any questions you might have about making the best quick breads, muffins, scones, and biscuits.

Q
Why are quick breads, muffins, biscuits, and scones always grouped together?

A
They are all quick to make because they use baking soda, baking powder, or a combination of the two for a quick rise in the oven. Within this category are a wide range of baked goods with various shapes, flavors, and textures. They can be large (soda bread) or small (mini muffins), sweet (chocolate chocolate-chip muffins) or savory (cheddar cheese and chive scones), light and fluffy (angel biscuits) or moist and dense (zucchini bread).

SEE ALSO:
Baking soda and baking powder,
pages 29
and
30
.

Q
What are the biggest differences between them?

A
I would divide quick breads, muffins, biscuits, and scones into two categories: Quick breads and muffins start as batters; biscuits and scones start as doughs. Batter is semiliquid while dough is thick and stiff. In a quick-bread batter, the ratio of flour to liquid is generally about three to two. Quick-bread doughs have a ratio of about three to one. Quick breads and muffins don’t require any shaping because the batter is just scraped or spooned into a loaf pan or muffin tin before baking. Scones and biscuits need at least minimal shaping before baking. But most scones and biscuits are remarkably easy to shape, so this extra step shouldn’t inhibit beginning bakers from trying those recipes.

A GLOSSARY OF QUICK BREADS

Here are the most common types of quick breads, with simple definitions.

Banana bread.
A popular quick bread utilizing an often-wasted countertop item: overripe bananas.

Bannock.
Scone dough that is pressed into a circle but baked in one large piece rather than cut into triangles before baking.

Biscuit.
An American quick-bread classic. The plainest biscuits are made with flour, baking powder, butter, and milk. Buttermilk and baking soda give them a higher rise and a slightly tangy flavor. Cream biscuits skip the butter and get their fat from heavy cream. Biscuits can be varied by adding flavorings like herbs, spices, cheese, or bacon, or by substituting cornmeal, oats, whole-wheat flour, or other grains for some of the flour.

Baking-powder doughnuts
. Sometimes called cake doughnuts, they contain chemical leaveners instead of yeast. To make them, you have to roll and cut quick-bread dough into doughnut shapes and then deep fry.

Beer bread.
A quick bread leavened with baking powder but with a surprisingly yeasty flavor from beer.

Boston brown bread.
A traditional whole-grain Northeastern quick bread flavored with molasses and baked in a coffee can to give it its distinctive shape.

Coffee cake.
Right on the fine line between quick bread and cake is coffee cake. The richest and sweetest of quick breads, it can still be classified as such because the batter comes together so quickly, by incorporating the liquid ingredients into the dry, and the rising often relies solely on chemical leaveners.

Combination biscuit.
Biscuit dough made with a combination of yeast and chemical leaveners. Also called angel biscuits.

Corn bread.
Two regional styles define this quick bread. In the North, corn bread is made with yellow cornmeal, some sugar for sweetness, and a good dose of chemical leavening for a high rise and cakelike texture. In the South, white cornmeal predominates, and the corn bread tends to be less rich and more crumbly in texture.

Dumplings.
A biscuit-type dough that is steamed in liquid rather than baked.

Fry bread.
A Native American bread, leavened with baking powder and deep-fried in oil or lard.

Gingerbread.
A spicy and aromatic quick bread with a springy texture, sweetened with molasses.

Hushpuppy.
A small cornmeal dumpling, fried in oil or lard.

Irish soda bread.
Originally a quick bread made of flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk, American versions often include eggs, sugar, butter, currants, and caraway seeds.

Johnnycake.
Cornmeal griddlecake cooked on a griddle or in a pan on the stove, rather than in the oven.

Muffin.
An individual-size quick bread made with batter and baked in a muffin tin. More moist than scones or biscuits from extra liquid, muffins also have a finer and more cakelike texture because of added eggs.

Pancakes, griddle cakes, and waffles.
All are made with quick-bread batters, but baked in a stovetop pan, on a griddle, or in a waffle iron.

Popovers.
Although not raised with chemical leaveners, popovers are still considered quick breads because they rise without the benefit of yeast. A simple batter made with milk, eggs, flour, salt, and melted butter expands in the oven, inflating into a balloonlike shape with a crispy outer shell and a moist interior. Although popovers can be made in a muffin tin, they will rise highest in a specially designed tin with straight-sided cups that push the batter upward.

Quick bread.
This can be a blanket term for any number of baked goods raised with chemical leaveners, as it is used for this glossary’s title. But it can also refer to a loaf-shaped sweet bread, similar to a cake but with less sugar and fat, often containing fruit and nuts for moisture and richness.

Scones.
Lightly sweetened quick-bread pastries that can be dropped, rolled, or cut into triangle shapes.

Zucchini bread.
A vegetable-based quick bread that can be either sweet or savory, especially popular in the late summer months when zucchini is at its most abundant.

Q
My supermarket doesn’t carry cake flour. Will all-purpose flour make good biscuits?

A
To lower the protein content of all-purpose flour, replace 2 tablespoons of every cup of all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. This will make a “softer” flour, similar to low-protein cake flour. Be sure to whisk the cornstarch and flour together well before stirring the dry ingredients into the wet.

Q
I see that many recipes in this category call for self-rising flour. What is this?

A
Self-rising flour is a baking mix consisting of a lower-protein white flour (about 8% protein, as compared to all-purpose flour, which has 11%) with added baking powder and salt, which is why recipes calling for this type of flour don’t include baking powder and salt. Self-rising flour makes quick bread and related recipes that much quicker to prepare.

Q
If I run out of or can’t find self-rising flour, what should I do?

A
Largely passed over in favor of all-purpose and cake flour in many parts of the country, self-rising flour is still a key ingredient in the Southern baker’s pantry. If you can’t find self-rising flour in your supermarket, this doesn’t mean you have to
pass on recipes calling for it. To make 1 cup of self-rising flour, use 1 cup of cake flour (which also has a low protein content) whisked together with a teaspoon of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt. (See Resources to order from the manufacturer.)

Q
Is there a secret to tender, light-textured muffins? Whether I’m baking corn, blueberry, or bran muffins, they always come out too tough for my taste.

A
As with other quick bread batters including those for loaf breads, pancakes, and waffles, muffin batter requires a “light hand.” This means that after whisking the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another, mix the two together very gently and quickly — less than 30 seconds with a wooden spoon is best. Longer than this and the gluten in the flour will begin to develop, leading to tough, rather than tender, muffins.

Q
What can I do so that my muffins won’t have large air bubbles and tunnels inside them?

A
When you beat too much air into a batter, you create the large air bubbles that expand in the oven, leaving holes in the crumb of your muffins. Use a light hand, mixing the dry ingredients into the wet just until everything is moistened and a few lumps remain, and you should eradicate this problem.

Q
How can I get the tops of my muffins to rise into tall peaks, instead of the slight mounds I always seem to wind up with?

A
There are a couple of ways to encourage your muffins to rise to greater heights. Assuming that you are using the quick-bread method of mixing (mixing the wet ingredients in one bowl, the dry ingredients in another, and then combining the two), you can beat more air into your batter by whisking the eggs and sugar together by hand for a minute or two before whisking in the butter or oil and any other liquid.

Another way to encourage height is to preheat the oven to a very high temperature — about 500°F (260°C). When you put your muffins in the oven, close the door and turn the heat down to the recommended temperature (muffins usually bake at 375 to 400°F [190–200°C]). The initial burst of high heat will let the chemical leaveners in the batter work most efficiently. If you do this, be sure to shave a few minutes off the baking time to compensate for the high heat at the beginning of baking.