Pretzels

Who does not like large, soft pretzels? I love them. I rarely ate them, because as a treat they were just too much to buy all the time at the mall, but I would take a nice long sniff as I walked past Aunt Annie's or Wetzels Pretzels. I wanted to be able to enjoy these treats more often then once a year. I knew that would require making them. I was little nervous about making pretzels. I didn't want to ruin them and I thought they might be complicated. One day I ran into an issue of what to have for dinner and I was craving pretzels. That night I went for it and decided to try making pretzels. I decided to use the recipe from http://www.recipeboy.com/2014/01/how-to-make-homemade-soft-pretzels/

Turns out making pretzels was not that complicated. Making the dough was pretty simple, it was a lot like making bread. I think the most complicated part was twisting the dough into pretzel shape. After making eight balls with the dough, I would roll each dough out as long as I could, like making a snake with play dough. Then I would twist the ends around each other twice before bring down the edges to the middle section. Then I would shape the dough to look like a pretzel.

After cooking and buttering the pretzels we ate them. I and my kids loved them. They were delicious. I have made this recipe twice with great results each time. The first time I shaped all the dough before dipping it in the water/baking soda bath and the second time I dipped the dough immediately after shaping. It did not make a difference to the flavor or taste or size. They were still delicious.

Basic Muffins

Easy, quick and delicious, muffins are a wonderful compliment to breakfast, snacks, even dessert. I have been trying to find a basic muffin recipe. I wanted one recipe where I can add different ingredients to make different muffins, without having a ton of different recipes. I decided to try the basic recipe from http://hubpages.com/food/Making_Muffins_from_Scratch_-_Basic_Muffin_Recipe

When I think muffins, I think the more sweet variety with fruit or chocolate chips. This recipe looked like it would handle these different flavors. First I wanted to find out how good the recipe is and if it is a recipe that I want to continue to use. I decided I would bake the basic recipe with the chocolate chip addition, mainly because my family really enjoys chocolate.

First, I pulled out my ingredients and bowls.

Usually, I use my nice Bosch mixer to make up my dough, but muffin dough should be mixed only until the ingredients are combined, so I prefer to mix muffins by hand. Unless you are doubling or tripling a batch, it is not any harder to mix muffin batter by hand than a mixer.

As usual when I first use a recipe I try to follow it exactly as possible, so I mixed my dry together and then my wet before combining them.

Generally, though, I mix my dry together and then throw my wet in with the dry, mixing as I go. I haven't found that this causes too much of problem and saves on the dishes I have to do later.

I added my chocolate chips, a little more than the recipe called for because my family really does like chocolate, put it in a greased muffin tin and baked them for 18 minutes. They came out looking beautiful.

The muffin was delicious, not too dry, and had a nice flavor without being too sweet, even with the chocolate chips. I will definitely use this recipe again, probably with even more variation, just to try some more flavors that I enjoy. Hopefully this basic recipe can stand up to my experiments.

Basic Muffin Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil

In a large bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl beat the egg, milk and oil. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened. Add in your flavor. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full and bake at 400 for 18-20 minutes. This makes one dozen muffins.

Chocolate Chip Muffins:  Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Blueberry muffins: Add 3/4 cup of blueberries and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice. Add lemon zest if wanted.

Cinnamon Raisin muffins: Add 1/2 cup of raisins and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon

Quick Bread: Pour all the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 400 for 45-50 minutes.