Something for idle hands to do...

[alexpgp]

Four jobs arrived; two went out.

The coolness of the weather makes it easy to justify turning on the stove, so I broke out the baking kit and made a batch of whole-grain "five-minute artisan bread" and baked two loaves, followed by a dozen corn muffins (a first, for me).

For some reason, the bread came out tasting as if I had not added any salt to the dough, which was certainly not the case (although I will admit to having shorted the amount of salt called for by the recipe by about 25%).

The corn muffins were very good, although the recipe on the side of the packaging was (in my opinion) a bit short on the liquid (8 oz of buttermilk for 2-1/2 cups of corn meal and flour, though I did fake the buttermilk by combining about 3 oz of runny plain yogurt with about 6 ounces of 2% milk). I was please by just how quickly the muffins baked (about 15 minutes) and by the fact that they're basically edible upon coming out of the stove (as opposed to the bread loaves, which have to cool down for a while before you can cut into them).

Cheers...

Comments

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

Is buttermilk really "the liquid left over from churning butter from cultured or fermented cream"?

The translation I find in the dictionary, "пахта" tells me next to nothing, because we do not use it in everyday cooking. :S

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

That might be a description of traditional buttermilk, but these days, I'd venture to say "buttermilk" you find in the store around these parts is a cultured product that's similar to yogurt or kefir, except it is entirely liquid (won't hold its shape like many yogurts, has no lumps like kefir, although both shape and lumps disappear if you stir these products, in my experience).

I think the point of using buttermilk is to use a dairy product with some acidity in the recipe.

Cheers...

[kehlen-crow.livejournal.com]

This sounds similar to milk whey that we sometimes do use in cooking.

Interesting, thank you.

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I also mix yogurt with water or milk when buttermilk is called for. But what I wanted to mention is a comment made to me by our Slovakian exchange student back in 1996. He shared his family's warning that one shouldn't cut the newly baked bread loaf too early or it would "lose its spirit." I thought this was a rather poetic way of advising against cutting the bread before it was cool. You know how they steam if you become impatient and slice them too early.