Huckleberry Muffins - Mom

When we were little one of the best things about living in our wilderness was the free fruit, expecially huckleberries.  They were like nature's candy, they grew wild around our house and they were prolific.  If the snacks on offer inside the house were sub-standard the huckleberries were a good alternative, often we would be outside picking and eating huckleberries then Mom would call us because we were going to go into town and we'd come back to the house with purple faces, fingers, and clothes and Mom, to her eternal frustration, would have to clean us up.

A few times a summer we could be persuaded to pick a bucket of huckleberries on the promise of huckleberry muffins.  The recipe came from Mom's high school home economics class it was so basic.  The circle was completed this week because we were able to persuade the kids to pick huckleberries on the promise of muffins not once but twice.  And the recipe being basic meant that the girls were able to help!

Muffins

Pre-heat the oven to 400^F (204^C)

Mix in a roomy bowl
2 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Make a well in the center and add
1 egg (beaten)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla

Stir well but no more than 20 times, otherwise the muffins will be tough.

Carefully stir in about
1 1/2 cups of huckleberries (approximate based on how many you can persuade kids to pick)

Spoon into a greased muffin tin, makes 12 muffins.

Bake for 20 minutes or until they spring back when you touch them.

Many thanks to Kayla and Paige for helping make glorious muffins for breakfast!

Waffles - Mom

Most weekends had a pancake day but occasionally my Dad's persistent requesting would pay off and we'd have waffles.  Mom hated making them, absolutely hated it.  I tried making waffles once when I was young (sharing my Dad's love of them) and it was a disaster.  I can't remember what the reasoning was, whether it was my inexperience in the kitchen at the time or just Mom not wanting me to make so much of a mess so early in the morning but I made pancake batter and used it in the waffle iron.  It might have worked but I think I opened the waffle iron too early and half of the waffles stuck to one plate and half on the other, and I couldn't scrape them out in big pieces.  I don't remember if I got yelled at but I was told to get the pancake griddle out and make pancakes then spent the morning after breakfast scraping out the waffle iron.  I didn't try again.

A few years ago, Mom's seriously cool industrial-esque vintage waffle iron with its heavy metal plates finally broke.  It did nearly 30 years of service in our family and it was an ancient hand me down inherited by Mom from one of Grandma Ross' friends who was moving.  Mom rejoiced when it broke thinking she would never have to make them again and Dad insisted on buying a new one.

I don't have a waffle iron so I've been waiting to get my hands on a waffle iron to add them to the blog.  I can understand why Mom hated making them, whisking egg whites before breakfast is asking a bit much of anyone, and the old waffle iron only did two waffles at a time so they used to take forever, the new iron now makes four waffles so there's some improvement to the process.

Waffles
Separate the eggs and whisk up to firm peaks
2 egg whites

In your big mixing bowl mix together
1 1/4 cups milk
4 tbsp veg oil
2 egg yolks

Sift into the wet ingredients
1 1/4 cups of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until smooth then fold in the egg whites.

Follow the directions for your waffle iron and cook until golden. 
While these stuck to the upper plate, at least they didn't rip in half!

And a double batch of batter made a big plate of waffles for the whole crew!

Breakfast is served and my nephew Parker pronounced them "Num" on the first bite.

Shortbread - Grandma Ross

I have been avoiding a rather close to my taste buds but controversial British topic, Shortbread.  A lot of Brits are highly opinionated about their shortbread, it ranks quite highly, if not at the very top, on the best ever biscuit leader board over here, and the Scottish are by far the most strongly opinionated about what makes the perfect shortbread, which is fair enough as they invented it.  But since there's a pretty thick layer of tartan under my Canadian skin I feel entitled to join in the discussion.

And my opinion was formed by the ideal standards set by my Scottish Granny, good shortbread should be thick and pale, no brown edges allowed.  I prefer individual biscuits made by cookie cutter shapes, rather than a large round that is broken into triangles or petticoat tails, I'll tolerate a bar that can be broken into fingers but I'd prefer the fingers to be baked individually.  While novelty shortbreads with nuts, chocolate, fruit, etc, are highly enjoyable, they are inferior to plain shortbread.  This is a biscuit where less is more, the beauty is in the delicate balance of basic ingredients that combine for a perfect flavour and texture.  Speaking of texture, they should be perfectly dry, bite or break to a smooth surface with a fine interior texture, and melt in your mouth.  I know there's a lot of people out there who think shortbread should be flaky when broken or the crumbs should feel like sugar-sand in your mouth, but I disagree they should feel smooth and melt.  And no dunking in your tea.

Sadly Grandma's recipe has been lost over the years but according to my Mom there was no big family secret for her recipe, just that she cut some of the wheat flour with both rice flour and corn flour and only used icing sugar and real butter - no substitutions on the butter, her magic was mostly in the execution.  Her shortbread was perfect little frilly circles, about half as thick as they were wide, pricked with a fork, and no darker out of the oven than they were when they went in, if it weren't for the fork marks you'd have trouble telling the top from the bottom they were so pale.  She was an expert. 

Many recipes I've looked up have a 3-2-1 ratio, three parts flour, two parts butter and 1 part sugar, they suggest replacing up to half the flour with rice or corn flour.  I have found that 2 parts butter creates a biscuit that spreads too much but that's my only departure from convention.

Along the way I learnt that rice flour keeps the shortbread white and cornflour makes the texture finer, and that the quality of butter is the biggest influence on the final taste of the biscuits.


Shortbread

Preheat the oven to 300^F (150^C)

Please note, - all these measurements are by WEIGHT not volume.
Cream together
3 3/4 oz unsalted butter, very very soft butter
2 oz icing sugar

Mix in by hand
6 oz mixed flour, a blend of: 3 oz plain (all purpose) flour, 1.5 oz corn flour, and 1.5 oz rice flour

Tip the dough out onto the counter and give it a very gentle knead to bring it all together if necessary, then roll it out to 1/2 inch thickness.  The dough shouldn't roll too easily or smoothly, there should be a few protest cracks around the edges, the more easily it rolls the more it will spread in the oven and we don't want spreading, we want chunky thick biscuits.  Also, don't chill the dough before baking, it will brown if you do.

Using a small fluted 1 1/2" cookie cutter cut out your cookies and transfer to a baking sheet.  Gather up the scraps once and re-roll and cut again with the cutter.  The second gathering of the scraps, for the third roll and cut, try to roll a rectangle and cut into fingers, shortbread is delicate and overworking will make it tough.

Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, depending on how big they are, until they are crispy dry but not browned, if they start to brown, lower the heat and bake for longer.

***Update:  I think there was a bit of a collective effort to compare shortbread cookies with the family this Christmas up in Kitimat.  I got pictures of Mom's, Allana's, and Gram's shortbread cookies.  Mom's are the three fork pokes, Allana's are the two pokes, and Gram made the diamond and smooth round - aren't they lovely?

I also thought I'd show the picture of Mom v Allana with the bottoms of the cookies.  Mom's are as pale on the bottom as on the top, see what I meant when I said the poke holes are how you tell which side is up, this comes from years and years of practice with your oven temperature.  Allana's are beige on the bottom but they aren't brown so it's still an effort to be proud of, even I'm not as good as Mom yet.