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

[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.