USA Pan - Muffin Tin

USA Pan - Muffin Tin

            Time to get a new pan!

I love a good muffin, but I have a couple of problems with making them.

Number 1:  

          I hate washing the muffin tins.  It takes forever and it's annoying.  

                   There are too many nooks and places that need serious scrubbing.  

Number 2:  

     I hate using cupcake liners.

     I resent the waste of money on paper throw-aways.

     I hate that half the muffin ends up stuck to the paper.  (Sigh!)

I did a search for "best muffin tin" and USA Pan was highly rated.  I found it on Amazon.  93% of the ratings were 5 Star.  It's kind of expensive - approaching $20, and I wanted two.   It was quite a debate, but since I had been really stalling on making muffins, we decided to splurge.

They arrived October 1, and in the 11 days since delivery, I have used it four times.  (This is a baking record for me!)

The first test was America's Test Kitchen sticky buns.

I may have taken it out of the pan too soon.

Then I made Raised Rich Rolls into cloverleaf and pull-apart rolls.

I have a lot to learn about consistency.  (That has nothing to do with the pan!!!)

The rolls were delicious!

During the summer I made two-cup freezer bags of red currants, so they are ready to go whenever I want them.  I made The Joy of Baking Buttermilk Berry muffins.  To this recipe I also added 1 cup grated Grimes Golden apple.

These were excellent!  

The addition of the apple made them moist and delicious!

Today's bake was Bon Appetit's Lemon Pound Cake.  I had made it before in my Nordic Ware mini bundt pan.  The bundt pan makes beautiful cakes, but it takes forever to get butter in every nook and cranny.  Then the wash-up takes forever as crumbs stick everywhere! 

Beautiful cakes, but enough extra work that it does not get made often!

So I tried the same recipe, cupcake style, in my new USA Muffin Tin.

We like small bites. The recipe could make 12 (not the 24 I made).

 Check out the pan - you see drips from the glaze, and a few crumbs.  Wash-up will be a breeze with a soapy sponge.  You must not use a dish-washer, which is good, since I don't have one!

I am just tickled with my new pans!

Unwanted Milk - What to do. . . ?

As we unpacked the Instacart grocery order, we noticed the Instacart shopper left a half-gallon of 2% milk with my order.  We had not ordered milk.  I hope another customer is not missing their milk!  Instacart said we did not need to return it.  We think life is too short to leave out the fat, so now what can I do with low fat milk?

A quick google search suggested cottage cheese or ricotta.  That's something we have never made, even when we had lots of fresh farm milk, but we have the luxury of free time now that we did not have then.

The directions are pretty simple.

Put the milk into a heavy pan.  I used my All Clad pan with the helper handle (what a great invention that is!).

Heat the 2 quarts of milk to 190ºF.

Add 1/3 cup vinegar.  

Let it sit for 30 minutes.

It immediately begins separating into curds and whey.  I feel like Miss Muffet.

Strain into a cheesecloth lined colander.

Let it rest for 30 minutes, then squeeze if necessary.  

Chill it, then add heavy cream and salt.

Eat.

~ ! ~ ! ~ 

Next is what to do with the whey.  The cottage cheese was 2 cups, and there were 6 cups of whey.  We don't have pigs or chickens.  Once again, google to the rescue.

I found a recipe for bread.

I used:

• 400 g whey (2 cups)
• 600 g bread flour
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

After the first rise I was hungry, so a pinched off a piece to make fry bread to eat while the rest of the dough was rising in the loaf pan.

It was delicious.  A great mid-afternoon snack!

I decided to shape the dough for a standard white-bread sandwich loaf.  I put it in my USA Pan loaf pan. (I do like this company!  I also have two of their muffin tins and one mini-muffin tin.  So far, nothing has stuck, and I do not grease the pans or use muffin papers.)

It has a fairly dense, heavy crumb.  It made delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.  

I have enough whey in the freezer for two more loaves!

Or I may try to find another recipe.

This bread was good, but we still like the challah recipe best.

King Arthur Blueberry Muffins - copy of Jordan Marsh muffins

Karen gave me a pint of blueberries.  She had picked them on her property.  They are delicious, small, and with concentrated sweetness.  I came across this recipe from King Arthur that sounded like a great use of the berries.  https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/famous-department-store-blueberry-muffins-recipe

These muffins copy the recipe of the treat sold in the tearoom of Jordan Marsh Department Store in Boston, Massachusetts in mid-20th Century.  It has a crunchy sugar top.  If it helps you to see the video, you can see it on the King Arthur page, but, fair warning, these two are experts at making a long story longer.  

1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) butter

1 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup for topping  Will probably use 3/4 cup granulated sugar in the next attempt

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract  I used my own home-made bourbon vanilla

2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour  I used Aldi's all-purpose

1/2 cup milk

2 1/2 cups blueberries   I used two cups, because that's what I had.

375°

25-30 minutes  

I had just two cups of berries, but that was plenty.

I love the USA Pan.  It's silicone coated, and I do not have to use  paper cupcake liners.

And I don't have to grease the tin.

And the muffins do not stick, even with the sugar baking on the tin.

And cleanup is a breeze.

And there is no waste like when the cake sticks to the paper. . . 

With this pan, the edges brown nicely.

The pan is not cheap.  But with the money saved on cupcake liners, and the aggravation saved by not greasing, and the time and energy saved by easy cleanup, it may be worth it!  

It is to me.

The recipe called for one teaspoon of granulated sugar added to each cupcake.

I did half with Demerara Sugar, a crystalline, slightly brown sugar.

The other half got regular granulated sugar.

I much preferred the Demerara.  D much preferred the granulated.  So it goes.

Quick Quiche

Today's blog begins with a story.

Years ago I was the advisor to the middle school French Club.  We met in the library each week, and I tried to come up with a variety of activities to have fun, learn French, meet all the students' learning styles, and provide a wide variety of experiences.  One day we had an information scavenger hunt using the library resources (this was pre-Google).  The list of questions included things like:

What are the colors of the French flag?

Name three countries that speak French,

Find a recipe for quiche.

What is the tallest mountain in Switzerland?

All of a sudden, booming across the library was, "My damn, what kind of quickie do you want?"  The librarian fell off her chair!

How to make an easy, quickie quiche.

Gather the equipment:

cookie sheet

muffin tin

whisk

pitcher

peppermill

knife

cutting board

And the ingredients:

2 cups cream, 6 ounces Swiss cheese, 10 ounces spinach

 

Don't forget the four eggs!

chop the onion 

Squeeze excess moisture out of frozen spinach.

Add the spices:

black pepper, nutmeg, cayenne pepper

Mix everything together.

Half fill the muffin tin.

Add crumbled bacon if you have some.

Or ham - or mushrooms - or none of these.

Fill the muffin tins.

Bake at 425º for around 30-40 minutes.

It's done when the centers jiggle but are not soupy.

Serve!

The USA Pan cooking pans are all great.  I have two muffin tins and two bread pans and a mini muffin tin.  They have a non-stick coating of some kind, so you do not need to grease the tins for cupcakes, muffins, quiches.  And because they come out so easily, you do not need cupcake papers.

USA Pans are fairly expensive.  When shopping for some things I use Amazon Warehouse.  That's where they get returns.  Sometimes there are flaws, but usually the flaws do not affect the usage.  For example, the original packaging may be missing.  https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=usa+pan&i=warehouse-deals&ref=nb_sb_noss_2  You might get a deal - 

Quicky Quiche

 I like quiche, but I am not crazy about the crust.  It gets soggy as the quiche sits.  It's a pain  and time consuming to make a good crust.  And store bought crusts are not worth the calories.  

I was tickled when I found USA Pan muffin tins that have a non-stick surface that makes for easy clean-up.

It occurred to me that these pans might make cute, individual quiches without crusts.  So I gathered my ingredients.  The proportions are not critical, but I like bacon, onions, mushrooms, spinach, eggs, milk.

So I pulled bacon out of the freezer and fried it with some onions.

FWIW I cut onions for soup and for frying from tip-to-tail rather than across in rings.  I have found that the rings end up stringy.

Add some mushrooms to fry with the onions and bacon.  I thawed some chopped spinach and squeezed much of the water out.  The spinach goes into the pan, too.

Then, into each cup of the muffin tin, place some pieces of bacon, mushrooms, onion, spinach, and cheese.  For laziness, I used Aldi's "Emporium Selection Specialty Shredded Swiss & Gruyere Cheese".  It's so convenient since it's already shredded.  I used the full eight-ounce bag for these.  I like a Swiss-type cheese for quiche.

I use one egg for each 1/2 cup of milk and beat them together.  Add some nutmeg and some freshly ground black pepper.

Then add the egg/milk mixture to each muffin cup.  That's it.

I had more than fit in one muffin tin, so I decided to test the T-Fal nonstick frypan. and added the rest of the liquid to the frypan.  Popped it into a 375º oven.  I did check in advance that the handles could go in the oven - T-Fal says they are safe to 350º, but at other times they have said safe to 400º.

In the muffin tins, the middle row of four has no spinach - just mushrooms, etc.

If you are worried about the handle on your frypan, Cooks Illustrated has come up with a solution:

"wrap the handle in a double layer of wet paper towels and then cover the towels with a double layer of foil. As long as there was water within the foil jacket (it will eventually boil away), the temperature of the handle couldn’t exceed 212 degrees (the boiling point of water)."

.  

These were delicious.  Quick and easy.  They refrigerate nicely and can be frozen, too.

No muss.  No fuss.  No crust.

Have I just invented a frittata?

I had a friend, a rather naïve one, 

who announced to the group, 

"I don't like quickies."

"I'll just have a hamburger."

Eat it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without! - Raisin Bread

Eat it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without!

During the Great Depression, President Coolidge used the expression, "Eat it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without!"   We have gotten away from that, but those of us with parents who experienced the Depression find it impossible to waste a perfectly good thing.

Last week I made challah and raisin bread. That post is here.

Alas, the raisin bread, while delicious, was ugly, with huge holes, so that it could not really be toasted or even buttered.  What to do?

I asked for suggestions, but prefaced the request with, "We hate bread pudding and French toast."  Those are the two most famous uses for old bread.  What a shame that we don't like those, because I do have all the ingredients.  Betsy came up with a great idea.  How 'bout Apple Charlotte.  I had never heard of it or tasted it, so she sent a link:
http://atasteofhistorywithjoycewhite.blogspot.com/2014/10/apple-charlotte-historic-food.html
I can do that!  For those who don't like reading recipes, Apple Charlotte is basically apple pie with a buttered toast crust.

First cook the apples with a bit of water, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger.

Then line your pan with buttered bread and put in the apples.

Top with more bread and bake at 400º.

(I got to use my new USA bread pans - which a bought after I watched poor D scrubbing out bread pans.  These have a quick-release finish that makes clean-up a snap.  I love the muffin tins, too.)

After it cools a bit, turn it out onto a serving plate.

Does this look like a monster in a white lagoon?

Slice and serve with whipped cream.

It was delicious, and if you find yourself with apples and old bread, it's worth a try.