hi everyone!
It’s APRIL! What are you baking? And is it an April Fool’s Joke to have a fly on the screen?
It certainly fooled me! I saw that little devil, and tried to squish it on my screen! Nope!
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Freaked me out that I couldn’t get rid of it!
Bran Oatmeal muffins - some with a sweetened cream cheese “crown”. The plain ones were just slightly sweet and will get jam or honey on them. The ones with the “crown” are great. The recipe is one from my home-town’s church cookbook and said these were served at the Spring Salad Luncheons.
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A mini-batch of The Violet Bakery Scone. As part of my delve into biscuits and scones, I made one-quarter of the Saveur recipe, which yielded 4 big scones.
Touted as a hybrid between English and American scones, I found The Violet Bakery Scone to be lovely. Definitely on the English side, and certainly more scone than biscuit. Visually, I love how they puffed and domed. The texture was crumb-like. The flavor creamy, and not too sweet. They are a perfect vehicle for jam (today’s selection included apple, blackberry and sour cherry). I’m glad I found the recipe and will make them again.
I ran across an interesting comparison of scone recipes here. As I muddle down the rabbit hole of scones, I found some of the data interesting and insightful.
Note: Unless it’s a special occasion, I no longer have the heart to cut biscuit or scone dough into rounds. I hate wasting all the scrap, and a second handling never yields a result as good as the first.
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Recipe:
Bran Oatmeal Muffins (measures after slash are for a half- recipe, 2 dozen muffins)
1 cups boiling water / ½ C.
2 cups 100% Bran / 1 C
1 cup shortening / ½ C
2 1/2 cups sugar (half brown and half white) / ½ C plus 2 T. each white and brown sugar
4 eggs / 2 eggs
1 quart buttermilk / 2 C. water plus ½ C. SACO buttermilk powder
5 cups flour / 2 ½ C.
1 tsp. Salt / ½ tsp
5 tsp. baking soda / 2 ½ tsps
4 cups uncooked oatmeal / 2 C.
Pour boiling water over bran and set aside while mixing rest of ingredients. Cream sugar and shortening. Add eggs, buttermilk, flour, salt and soda. Add cereals last. Fill well-greased muffin tins 3/4’s full. Bake 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees. Raisins, nuts or both may be added just before baking. This batter can be refrigerated up to 3 months. The recipe makes approximately four (4) dozen standard muffins or approximately 8 dozen mini-muffins.
Enough for about 16 muffins
Beat together:
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/8 cup granulated sugar (this is 2 T)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Drop about a teaspoon scoop on top of muffin. Muffin may crater around cream cheese as muffin cools.
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I agree with you about the round scones/biscuits. I’ve always been too lazy to reroll anyway and I tend to prefer to the way the texture comes out when they are uneven squares or wedges. These look gorgeous - will have to try them out!
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If there is butter in this recipe, it’s not in your ingredients.
@MidwesternerTT I must have misread, thought I saw “butter and shortening” in the instructions.
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Beautiful scones!
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Spinach burek. It’s just like making strudel or parathas. In fact, I made two parathas with part of the dough.
I rolled the filling the way I saw in some videos, but I prefer the usual way I do it when doing strudel and will be doing that in the future. I think it’s easier and more practical to divide the dough from the beginning once it’s been stretched out.
I made this more like a spanakopita filling in that I used feta, but my goal was to use the feta I bought on a whim. Next time I’ll make farmer’s cheese and use that, and more of it. I should have also used a smaller pan, but I had already greased a 12-inch one.
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My mother ,father and I as a 4 year old came to Canada after WW2 from Ukraine. My late mom was a fantastic baker who had all her recipes in her head. She had this old cup which she used for measuring. When I started developing an interest I went around with a measuring cup and took notes. These rolls are made with a not too sweet sour cream dough. The filling is pressed cottage cheese,zest of lemon,egg yolks,icing sugar and lemon juice(My idea) my mom used rum. My british sil is crazy for them.
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I have a bunch of bananas here that I didn’t order from Instacart. I received the wrong delivery last week and the rep said to keep the stuff, give it away, or discard it. Most of the stuff was picked up. I am stuck with bananas though. I was watching Ina Garten’s new FN show featuring guests. She showed a recipe for Banana Crunch Muffins that had bananas, chopped walnuts, shredded coconut, and granola. No granola but I have everything else. I’m going to make them tomorrow to bring into work on Monday.
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Those look absolutely wonderful! They remind me of when I was a kid and we’d get pastries from the European deli in town. The sweet cheese filled ones were my favourite. Any chance of getting the recipe?
Yes, those are absolutely beautiful and the story is, too! I echo jammy - if you would part with the recipe, I would treasure it. (And I will do my best to attempt them for the Ukrainian Cuisine of the Quarter board!)
Dorie’s Ukrainian goosefeet cookies - forgot to post these - they were fantastic. Such nuggets of puff pastry. Highly recommend!
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Gorgeous - and I loved the story about her realizing this was her aunt’s dough!
If you want to cross-post, Ukrainian is cuisine of the quarter.
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