On Monday I made some corn muffins. The recipe I have calls for the muffin method but I decided to try making it with the creaming method, since that is what I'm going to be tested on with blueberry muffins for the midterm. They turned out well, they taste good, but the texture is rather different than corn muffins that I'm used to. They had a pretty smooth texture and were more light. I'm unsure if it is due to using the creaming method or ingredients-I have white corn meal which doesn't seem as coarse. I'd guess that the smooth texture is due to the cornmeal and the lightness is due to the creaming method. Either way, they taste good, even if they aren't that reminiscent of regular corn muffins.
On Wednesday I also practiced some more making country biscuits. I have made them several times but I still wanted to practice on them. This time after prepping the dough I shaped them into a rough square that I cut into nine pieces. I did this in order to minimize the amount of work on the dough-cutting in rounds forces you to re-knead, toughening it. This way the entire dough was used without having to re-knead, so they turned out pretty well. The only thing is presentation though. They aren't uniform in shape or size, so I'm not sure if I'd want to present them for grading like that or not.
For dinner I made some pizza. I've made pizza dough a lot so it's not much special but it looked pretty today. I tried par-baking the dough and then topping it with the ingredients and finishing baking. I'm not sure what I think of it. During the par-baking, it rose since there was nothing to weigh it down, but it cooked more evenly. I guess next time I could try docking it, but I don't want a flat, crisp dough. I'll think about it next time I make pizza.
Then I also tried making some biscotti since I had a recipe and it seemed pretty easy. It is easy to make but takes a lot of cooking time for not a lot of product, I don't like using that much gas. However during baking the aroma was fantastic. I don't like sweet food much but the aroma of baking is what I love about it so much. I am unsure what I think of the recipe. The recipe itself seems fine but I don't know about the baking part. It called for the first bake to be 50 minutes then a 20 minute finish after cutting. The recipe in the book has a 20 minute bake and then the temperature is reduced and baked for 40 minutes. The way I did it (the former) made them extremely crisp. After the first bake it was pretty tough to cut them and then the second bake made them even crisper. I also used an egg wash which crisped it some. Maybe next time I'll use a milk wash, which will give it color but a soft crust. I think if I make them again I may try the same recipe but using the book's cooking times. Oh I also gave up on my starter. I was getting some activity but not much, meaning most of it was dead. Ah well. For the moment I don't think I'm gonna make another. I'm content with straight-dough breads since doing a starter right means a lot of wasted flour since you toss a good amount of the starter every time you feed it.
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