Skip navigation

Tag Archives: snack

I make! Cinnamon streusel orange muffins

Another edition of trying to get rid of oranges.  This actually happened much more recently than the orange pound cake and I actually have a recipe!  Mostly because I used a single recipe and didn’t make a frankenrecipe for myself.

In my search for more orange flavored baked goods, I came across a recipe for cinnamon streusel orange muffins.  I thought that was an interesting combination.  I don’t often see cinnamon and orange together.  So, of course I tried it out.

WP_20170312_17_03_58_Rich_LIThey turned out pretty good.  Again, the orange flavor isn’t quite where I wanted it.  It was pretty faint.  It was more of an aftertaste…or after…flavor…after…scent?  Pretty subtle, not unpleasant, almost floral, but I really wanted the orange to be more prominent.  I had added zest to the batter along with the orange juice too.

The orange and cinnamon combination was rather nice.  I didn’t try and drown everything in cinnamon like I normally do.  So the cinnamon added a bit of sweetness and warmth to the flavor.  I rather liked it.  I think it would still work if the orange flavor were stronger.

What else…?  Oh, the texture was pretty good.  I like adding buttermilk (powder) to things.  Besides flavor, I think it improves texture.  Also, since this is a muffin recipe, it is pretty important not to overmix.  These muffins had a tender crumb and were a little springy in texture (a bit more than I would have expected in a muffin, but not unpleasant).

Muffins themselves were also pretty.  I like the crackly top of streusel and the swirl of cinnamon in the middle of the muffin.  I think the photo is from the first time I tried the muffins.  Subsequent batches had even cracklier tops.

If I were to make them again, I definitely would have to augment the orange flavor.  I saw that some people were trying orange juice concentrate.  I think that would definitely bring an “orange” flavor to the forefront, but I don’t particularly like the taste of orange juice concentrate.  Looks like another recipe in which I get to play with citrus oils.

Advertisement

I make! Cinnamon Star Bread edition

This.  This is what I made.  An empty, dirtied piece of parchment paper.

WP_20170107_21_24_44_Rich_LI

Or really, I made a loaf of cinnamon star bread (some time Januaryish)…because I wanted to bake with cinnamon, didn’t want to take the time to roll and cut cinnamon rolls, and needed something dessert-y to offer as refreshment.  And apparently it was really good because I didn’t even have time to take a picture.  It was gone in a flurry of hands and the parents of the kids who devoured the bread were left lamenting that they didn’t even get to try it (and that it smelled so good).

I saw the cinnamon star bread pop up on King Arthur Flour’s site back in December and made a mental note to try it.  I didn’t bake one right then because I didn’t have any potato flour or instant mashed potatoes on hand.  I was going to try it without but I was reading KAF’s comments and user comments and became convinced that the potato flour was necessary for a softer, moister loaf.  Also, I like to try and make things as instructed the first time around.  Can’t judge a recipe when you go and make a bunch of changes to it at the outset.

So I made it as directed, by weight, but I noticed a discrepancy at with the listing for the potato flour.  I didn’t have any, as all I could find last minute was potato starch.  Potato starch and potato flour are not the same thing and generally are not interchangeable.  I had picked up a bag of instant mashed potatoes instead to use in place of potato flour.  It’s probably better anyway because I can always find a use for instant mashed potatoes.

Now then, I assume that KAF lists different volumes for potato flour and instant mashed potatoes because instant mashed potatoes is less dense than the flour.  But I couldn’t find anything that confirmed that.  So I ended up going by the serving size volume/weight conversion as listed in the nutrition info, which was lighter than what KAF listed, about 35g instead of the 48g.

I used my own cinnamon sugar mix as I like using brown sugar for that molasses-y background and also because I am VERY. FOND. of cinnamon, 3tbsp per 66g brown sugar.  You’ll have to mix it a bit more than if you were going to make your cinnamon sugar mixture with white sugar.  It’s never been a big deal for me though.

Oh, did I mention that I kneaded the dough by hand this time?  I didn’t use the KitchenAid at all!

After resting the dough, I divided it into four portions.  I really wish I had used a scale.  I got lazy and had already put the scale away so I just eyeballed it.  Which means that two of my 10″ rounds were by no means 10″ in diameter.  I used those as the inside layers and the two bigger ones, that were 10″, as the outside layers.  I figured this would give me the best chance to seal the points of the star without things falling apart.

Anyway, it baked up very nicely.  It smelled wonderful in the oven, as things made with cinnamon often do.  There were a few kids who were constantly sniffing the air when the bread was in the oven.  I would show you a picture of the first one, but alas, I do not have one.  As the bread was eaten before I had a chance.

I have since made the bread several more times (generally with the KitchenAid and a scale, and sometimes cutting the cinnamon down to 2 tbsp per 66g), so here are pictures of the subsequent loaves.  The darker one is one in which I actually remembered to egg wash before putting it in the oven.  I tend to forget.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.