Tinkering, Part I

Jacques Pépin says that home cooks must make a recipe at least once, and preferably twice, exactly as it is written before they understand it enough to improvise the third time around. And Judy Rodgers said in The Zuni Cafe Cookbook that

[m]aking even a simple dish three times in two weeks can teach you more about cooking than trying three different dishes in the same period of time. Pay attention to the process of making it, and to the small and large differences in the results.

I kept their advice in mind as I set out to find an alternative to the recipe for pumpkin muffins I had been making. If variety is the spice of life, you can't have blueberry muffins in your lunch every day. And Brad and especially Cassie love pumpkin muffins. But I wasn't crazy about the one we'd been making, which is a little dense and squat and wouldn't spring if you gave it a hot-foot.

One day I happened across a recipe for pumpkin bread that intrigued me by using a little bit of rye flour like a pain d’épices (French spice bread). I wondered about using half a teaspoon of ground cloves but it wasn't overpowering and the bread was good, so I started to work.

The first problem was converting from bread to muffins. Since muffin-making is part of my weekend baking, I'm not about to get out the mixer to use the creaming method to make the batter, as the original recipe does. So the biggest change in switching from bread to muffins was using the muffin method instead. (They don't call it the "muffin method" for nothing.) Also in the spirit of making things easier for weekend baking, I used oil instead of the softened butter that you need if you're mixing by the creaming method. And there's not enough flour in the original recipe to make enough batter to fill a standard 12-cup muffin tin so I bumped it up to 2¼ cups total of flour. With the amount of spices in this recipe, it was easy to use ¾ cup of white whole wheat flour without appreciably changing the taste. Finally, I increased the oven temperature to 375 degrees to insure some oven spring to get a domed top on the muffins.

All of that worked fine but I wasn't there yet. The muffins were a little too sweet for our taste so I dropped the sugar by ¼ cup. I also left out an egg because I think 2 eggs are enough for a muffin recipe. But that meant less moisture, and the muffins were already on the dry side with the increased flour, so I added in some plain yogurt, which also helps to tenderize the muffins. We like some texture in pumpkin muffins, too, so some kind of nuts were a must.

The last change was more one of convenience. All of this experimenting occurred over a six-week period (after which Brad and Cass may like pumpkin muffins less than they used to). The original recipe called for a cup of canned pumpkin, which is about two-thirds of a 15-ounce can. That means you have to make three batches of muffins to use two cans of pumpkin. I decided to cut it back to half a can so I only have to make two batches to use one can of pumpkin. It's a little less pumpkin flavor, but I like it that way and I think it's a pretty good muffin.

This is a long-winded way to say make a recipe as it's written at least once, then you can start tinkering. Pay attention the first time you make it: Is it worth making again? What did you like? What didn't you like? Could the method be streamlined or improved? Take notes as you go through the recipe, and after you make it, and it will be easier to figure out what changes, if any, are needed when you start working with it.

Pumpkin Muffins 1.5

 

Time: 37 minutes until the muffins are out of the tin (15 minutes active)

In the end, I decided there was enough going on here that the rye flour that caught my eye in the original recipe wasn't really adding much so I left it out. If you want to try it, substitute 30 grams (¼ cup) rye flour for an equal amount of the all-purpose flour. You can also use as much (even 100%) or as little whole wheat flour as you like, without having to make any changes to the recipe. You can use 1½ teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice in place of the cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. Use canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling. I highly recommend Trader Joe's Organic Pumpkin. It's only available in the fall so I buy a lot of it then and store it to use the rest of the year.

Version 1.5 switches to a one-bowl method to streamline the process.

2 large eggs (~57 grams each still in the shell)

212 grams (½ can/~⅞ cup) canned pumpkin puree (see note) 

150 grams (¾ cup) granulated white sugar

120 grams (½ cup) plain yogurt or buttermilk or kefir 

½ cup olive oil (106 grams) or unsalted butter (1 stick/113 grams), melted, or a combination 

1 teaspoon (5 grams) vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (see headnote on spices)

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon xanthan gum (for gluten-free only; see variation below)

150 grams (1⅓ cups) regular or white whole wheat flour 

125 grams (1 cup) all-purpose flour

60 grams (~½ cup) walnut or pecan pieces

Coarse sugar such as turbinado, for sprinkling (optional)

 

    1. Place a rack in the center of the oven; heat to 375 degrees. Spray a muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

    2. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and whisk to break them up. Add the pumpkin, sugar, dairy, oil or butter, and vanilla, and whisk until smooth.

    3. Sprinkle over the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, cloves, and nutmeg (and xanthan, if using), and whisk until smooth. 

    4. Add the flour(s) and nuts. Using a silicone spatula, gently fold everything together until just combined and no streaks of flour remain. Don’t overmix. (You can combine everything more thoroughly if you're using a gluten-free flour blend.)

    5. Scoop the batter into the muffin tin. A rounded #16 scoop (¼ cup) works well for this job. There should be about 80 to 85 grams of batter in each well. Sprinkle each muffin with coarse sugar, if desired. (Skip the coarse sugar if you're not eating the muffins the day you make them as the sugar gets soggy by the next day.)

    6. Bake until the muffins are golden brown, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean, about 18 minutes.

    7. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin set on a wire cooling rack, then turn the muffins out onto the rack to cool. These are best eaten the day they’re made, but they also keep fine in a ziplock bag in the fridge for a week's worth of school lunches.

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins
Substitute 275 grams gluten-free flour blend for the flours, and add ¼ teaspoon xanthan gum in step 3.