Maple Cornmeal Biscuits

Some months I make all of the Tuesdays with Dorie recipes for the month within a week of when they're announced, giving me the luxury of time to write my posts, comment on my friends blogs and generally enjoy the process.

These days, not so much. I've been working a ton (lots of 8 and 9 PM nights) and generally feeling like I'm living one of those nightmares where you run faster and faster but seemingly run in place, unable to escape the monster. It's not even my "busy" time of year yet, that time when we're closing the books for the year and getting ready for the audit, and getting through the audit, and the year-end reporting, yadda yadda.

When things are a pressure cooker get busy at work, I bake. My coworkers call it stress baking and while they are simpatico about my palpable stress, they've started tremulously asking the question "So, you're working a ton. When does the stress baking start?" For while they wouldn't wish my year-end (that's June 30th for us) workload on anyone, they don't mind that I blow off steam by getting out the flour, butter, sugar, eggs and frequently chocolate.

Let me say I am extraordinarily lucky to work with a great group of people who whole-heartedly embrace my baking. I never hear complaints. In my last job, I was confronted in the elevator by a woman who found baked goods irresistible and really wanted me to stop. So I appreciate having an audience who eats it all, without complaint, and gives me good feedback to boot.

So when the stress baking question started surfacing, I resolved to bake more (hard to do when you're getting home at 9:30 and going back to work at 8-ish). Fortunately, the May TWD recipes had been announced and they were almost all easy, portable and suitable for breakfast.

I'm dubious about recipes that call for cornmeal if it's a departure from the norm, so I was a little wary about this one. In my pre-coffee stupor, I messed up measuring the wet ingredients and added too much maple syrup. My batter was much wetter than normal, but I went with it. It turned out just fine as the biscuits were moist, tender, flakey and delicious. I made a little maple butter to serve with them and that made the butter lovers happy.

I can't say how these keep since they disappeared in the blink of an eye. Like any biscuit, I think they should be consumed while still warm from the oven, and they taste extra yummy when shared with people you love.

Lindsay from A Little Something...Sweet is our host this week. I can't thank Lindsay enough for picking something easy and delicious to get this year's stress baking off on the right foot. If you're looking for a foolproof spin on the classic biscuit, Lindsay will have the recipe for you here.

Maple Oatmeal Wheat Bread

Not to overstate it but this recipe underscores the beauty of the recipe sharing that happens among bloggers.

I first saw this bread on my buddy Margaret's blog Tea and Scones (recipe here). I made it and my coworkers flipped for it. Mags saw my post, and she reworked the recipe to use whole wheat flour (you can see her post here). When I saw her version, I wanted to make it but I wanted to make it even better.

In this case, better means easier. I am in love with Dan Lepard's kneading technique, which involves three 10 second kneads, each followed by a rest period. I wanted to revise this recipe so it would be easy for yeast phobics (I used to be one of you!) to make a flavorful, healthy bread without a stand mixer or big muscles. Although I think this version is just about perfect, I hope you'll make the recipe your own just as Mags and I did.

This bread is wonderful while still warm from the oven, great dipped in a little maple syrup or with maple butter, and makes a spectacular turkey sandwich.

Maple Oatmeal Bread
Printer friendly recipe
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup (80 g) rolled oats
2 1/4 cups (300 g) whole wheat flour
2 3/4 cups (415 g) unbleached bread flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons vital wheat gluten
1/3 cup (50 g) dried milk powder
3/4 cup maple syrup, at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Maple syrup for brushing (optional)

Oatmeal for sprinkling (optional)

In bowl of stand mixer, combine boiling water and oats. Cover and let sit for one hour. It's OK if you leave it a bit longer.

In a medium sized bowl or large measuring cup, whisk together the whole wheat flour, the bread flour, yeast, salt, wheat gluten and dried milk powder. Set aside.

When the oats have cooled for one hour, add the flour mixture and mix in with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour in the maple syrup and stir together with your wooden spoon or spatula then with your hands to bring together as a soft, sticky dough. Pour the warm melted butter over the dough and mix into the dough with your hands. Cover the bowl and let stand for 10 minutes.

Grease a flat clean surface with olive oil (or, use a Silpat as I do). Remove the dough from the bowl (it will be a bit damp and very sticky) and knead for ten seconds, then form the dough into a smooth round ball. Wipe the bowl clean and grease with olive oil, then return the dough ball to the bowl and leave for 10 minutes. It's OK if you leave it a few minutes longer.

Repeat this ten-second kneading and resting process every 10 minutes twice (a total of three kneadings), then let the dough rest for 30 minutes.

Grease two loaf pans (you can use 8 x 4 or 9 x 5). Divide the dough into two equal pieces, shape into two loaves (which I do by dividing half the dough into two pieces and forming each into a ball, placing them side by side in the pan) and place each in a loaf tin. Lightly cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about one hour, or until the dough crests about an inch over the top of the pans. If using the larger loaf pan, your dough may not crest as much. It should feel lightly springy to the touch.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If desired, brush tops of loaves with maple syrup and sprinkle with oatmeal. Place loaves in oven and bake for 40 minutes, rotating pans 180 degrees halfway through the baking time. Remove loaves from the pans and cool on a cooling rack for one hour before slicing. Warm bread is pretty irresistible, but your loaf will have the best texture if you wait until it cools completely. That said, if you cut off a few slices to try, only the cut end will be a little moist, the rest of the loaf will completely normal.

Great Grains Chocolate Chip Muffins

Who says chocolate can't be good for you? Or that things made with whole grains are boring?

Not these delectable muffins. Christine of Happy Tummy selected Great Grains Muffins for the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers to make this week. They looked good to me as is, but in case you're new around here, I like adding chocolate to almost anything I bake. These were no exception. When armed with a muffin with chocolate chips, it's a happy morning. A muffin made with whole wheat, cornmeal, oats, maple syrup and dried blueberries with chocolate chips? It's going to be a great day!

These muffins were even good after several days of sitting in my car. I ate one for dinner on my way to an evening event and it was still moist and delicious, and, of course, chocolaty.

Stop by and visit Christine. She'll have the recipe for you. And you can see what the other bakers thought by checking them out here.

Translucent Maple Tuiles

I have a tenacious case of tendonitis in my wrist, which has brought my blogging, commenting and tweeting to a screeching halt. Fortunately, I made these tuiles before the doctor knew how much my wrist hurt (I deliberately waited to see the doctor until after Thanksgiving). I would have been so sad to miss them since they're delicious and were picked by my blogging friend, Clivia of Bubie's Little Baker. Tasty, beautiful and easy, all in one delicate cookie.

The only tricky part of this recipe (other than not eating all of them by myself) could be scraping them off the sheet pan and transferring them to your rolling pin. I baked them in small batches so they wouldn't cool too much to flex on the rolling pin. Then I got lazy and decreed the rest would be flat. None of my tasters seemed to care if they were flat or curved because they're so amazingly yummy.

Thanks, Clivia, for picking a real winner. If you'd like to see what the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers did with this one, you'll find them here. And Clivia has the recipe for you here.

You only have a few days left to enter my giveaway! BlogHer and Ghirardelli chocolate teamed up and they're offering a $100 Visa gift card to one lucky person who leaves a comment here. And maybe less enticing than a $100 gift card is my recipe for double chocolate scones. In a word...dangerous. Check them out while you're entering the giveaway.

No TWD, Will Maple Oatmeal Bread Suffice?

I found this glorious bread on my friend Margaret's website, Tea and Scones. It looked and sounded so good I was obsessed with making it and I wasn't disappointed when I finally made time for it. It has a light, lovely crumb and was a smashing success with my coworkers. Maple butter (Margaret has the recipe for you here) certainly doesn't hurt.

Although I planned to submit this bread for World Bread Day, I was on a plane and jetlagged on the 16th. So you get it, and my apologies, instead of the caramel pumpkin pie selected by Janell of Mortensen Family Memoirs for Tuesdays with Dorie. Expect another lame excuse next week, when I'll again be jetlagged but from coming home from our vacation.

You can find the recipe for this yummy bread here.

Maple Oatmeal Scones

Scones have a reputation for being difficult to make like so many ethereal things that are really easy. The secret, just like pie crust, is not to handle them too much.

Like all Ina Garten recipes, this one makes a ton. I usually bake off half of them and freeze the rest. They're almost better when baked from the freezer.

Maple Oatmeal Scones (adapted from Ina Garten)

Printable recipe

For the scones:

3 1/2 cups/490 grams all-purpose flour

1 cup/140 grams whole wheat flour

1 cup/160 grams quick-cooking steel cut oats

2 tablespoons/30 grams baking powder

2 tablespoons/30 grams sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 pound cold unsalted butter, diced

1/2 cup/120 grams buttermilk, cold

1/2 cup/175 grams maple syrup (preferably Grade B)

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon of milk or cream (for egg wash) (optional)

For the glaze:

1 1/4 cups/143 grams powdered sugar

1/2 cup/175 grams maple syrup (preferably Grade B)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flours, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt.

In a small mixing bowl or 2-cup measure, combine the buttermilk, maple syrup and eggs and beat with a fork to thoroughly combine.

With the mixer speed on low, add the cold diced butter to the dry ingredients and blend until the butter pieces are pea-sized and the mixture looks like wet sand. Stop the mixer occasionally to check the size of the butter pieces and don't be tempted to turn the speed higher. with the mixer on low speed, add the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. The dough will be sticky.

Turn the dough out on a well floured surface and pat it into a roundish shape. The dough will have pea-sized lumps of butter. Flour a rolling pin and lightly roll it until it's approximately 3/4" - 1" high for regular scones. I like my regular scones to be thicker and my minis to be thinner (1/2" - 3/4"), but that's totally up to you.

Flour a cutter (I use 2 1/2" for regular scones and 1 1/2" for minis) and cut out the scones by pushing the cutter straight through the dough without twisting and put the scones on the baking sheet. Brush with the egg wash and bake for 20-25 minutes (for regular scones) or 15-20 minutes for minis (depending on how thick they are). Scones are done when the tops are crisp and the insides are done. Let scones cool on a rack for at least 5 minutes before glazing.

To prepare the glaze, combine the powdered sugar, maple syrup and vanilla in a small bowl and combine well, making sure there are no lumps. Drizzle cooled scones with maple glaze and serve.

TWD - Maple Wheat Cookies

For Tuesdays with Dorie this week, Michelle of Flourchild selected Dorie's Honey Wheat Cookies for us to bake. For some unknown reason, I had a hard time getting excited about this one. Maybe I thought we were baking sweet Wheat Thins, but whatever it was, I put this one off.

When I did make them, I substituted maple syrup for the honey  and left the lemon zest out. I may have added the baking powder twice, I won't really know for sure until I see the other TWD bakers' cookies. Whatever I did, I hope I can do it again and again because these were delicious! They're very easy to make and are soft, crunchy and sweet.

If you'd like the recipe, Michelle will have it posted. Better yet, buy the book we're baking from, Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

TWD - All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake

The All-In-One Holiday Bundt cake, selected by Britin of The Nitty Britty for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe with apple, pumpkin, cranberry, pecan, all in one cake could be a train wreck or really delicious; fortunately it was lovely with the maple glaze.