Eating Healthier in Today's World

MAKING HEALTHIER QUICK BREADS AND MUFFINS

For our third and final installment of this topic, I would like to discuss the mixing, baking and serving of these wonderful tasty, yet healthy quick loaves and/or muffins.  Besides using better ingredients,  the secret to making successful quickbreads is in the mixing.

Mixing:  Ingredients should be a room temperature or a little warmer, even the eggs.  This is true for muffins, but it is particularly helpful when making loaves, because cold batter heats unevenly:  the crust gets too dark before the loaf cooks in the center.

The traditional method for mixing quick breads is to stir the dry ingredients together, and, in a separate bowl, the wet ingredients.  The two are combined with a minimum of mixing, then put in the baking pan and into the hot oven quickly.  The speed is intended to insure that the bread loses as little gas as possible before the oven heat can set the dough.  Even if you are using double-acting baking powder (which give you more leeway because part of its reaction begins only in the heat of the oven), this is still a very good method, albeit a little tense if anyone gets in your way, or the phone rings at the crucial moment. 

Since many of our customers, including myself, are using the Bosch Universal machine to mix our muffins and loaves in, I advise a couple of revisions.  Mix the wet ingredients in the Bosch bowl and mix the dry ingredients in a big cup or second bowl.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the bowl and use the cookie whisks or batter whisks instead of the french whips that come with the machine  To mix, just jog it on the "M' switch until the batter is just barely mixed.  Again quickly put it in the muffin tins or loaf pan and bake.

An aside to mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles:  Mixing quick breads is not so difficult that you can't involve children in the process.  For my experience, making raisin-nut bread or blueberry muffins is quite as much fun as making cake or cookies, and more healthful to the family as well.  Something that can surprise us "olders" is that oftentimes children are even prouder to contribute an intergral part to the family meal than to supply just the dessert.

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Baking and Serving:  A moderate oven temperature, about 350 °F, is good for most loaves, with a slightly higher heat, 375°--425°F, for muffins and unsweet cornbreads.  The oven should be preheated thoroughly before the bread goes in.

Many of my recipes call for whole grain flours and a minimum of chemical leavenings and eggs, so they rise less puffily than do standard sypes.  In order to produce nicely shaped muffins and loaves, fill the pans about three-fourths full, sometimes even fuller.  For loaves, I have sized the recipes to fill a medium 8"x4" pan.  Most of the muffin recipes make 12 ordinary small muffins, each dip in the pan holding a little over 1/4 cup.  For the larger size muffin tins--they hold nearly 1/2 cup each--double the recipe to make a full dozen.

Baking times will vary with each recipe depending on the ingredients and the peculiarities of your own oven.  In general, allow about an hour for laoves and about 18 min. for muffins.  If your loaves burn on the top of the crust before they are done in the center, try using shiny metal loaf pans and/or place one pan inside another as a practical remedy.  If you are short on loaf pans, putting your loaf in its pan on a cookie sheet can help too.

When done, a quick bread will have an inviting aroma and will shrink away from the edge of the pan a little bit.  To check, insert a toothpick or clean sharp knife in the middle of the bread: if it's done, the blade will come out clean.

Let muffins cool briefly in their tins; remove them either one by one or with a fork, or simply turn the tin upside down over a towel, giving it a firm but gentle tap if the muffins don't all tumble out.  (If you ran out of batter before all the cups were full put water in an empty cup to keep the grease from burning, don't foreget to sponge out the remaining water before you turn the tin upside down)

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