Breakfast is the worst meal of Thanksgiving Day.
The family and the chef need to eat but you don’t want anyone in the kitchen making toast or oatmeal while you’re chopping, basting and mashing. (The coffee is already brewing, however.)
Oatmeal cranberry muffins are a not-too-sweet, hold-them-until the big feast baked good that can be prepared in advance and frozen. Warm them a bit and you have a day-starting snack packed with the seasonal flavor of cranberries.
Baking can be frightening for some. After all, baking is chemistry and math. But it doesn’t have to be complex.
Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years, starting in home economics class at Townsend Junior High School.
Pick a recipe you are comfortable with. Fussy recipes with tons of ingredients — maybe some you haven’t heard of — can be overwhelming.
Likewise, pick recipes with ingredients you like. There are plenty of morning muffins with oatmeal that have banana in them. Not a banana fan, I steer away from recipes that get moisture and sweetness from this fruit.
Unless you’re willing to experiment, don’t pick a recipe that includes a process or technique with which you are not comfortable.
Using cupcake liners can add a festive or seasonal feel to the muffins. To keep the muffin from sticking to the paper, especially if using a low-fat recipe, use a squirt of cooking spray in each muffin cup.
Before you start mixing, gather ingredients and tools and measure the ingredients. This step ensures you have all of the necessary ingredients, avoiding an emergency trip to the store.
Measuring before you start mixing helps ensure you don’t skip a step or — usually after an interruption — asking yourself “did I add that?” or “how many teaspoons did I add?”
Have the right tools. While chemistry has beakers and test tubes, baking has two types of measuring cups. You’ll need both, one for liquid and one for dry ingredients. The two types hold the same amount and are designed to measure their respective ingredients accurately.
Use the spoon-and-sweep technique for dry ingredients. Spoon the ingredient into the measuring cup to the brim and sweep away excess using the flat side of a knife across the top of the cup to make a precise measurement. Put a piece of wax paper under the measuring cup and return excess to the package, so there is no waste.
Cups for liquid ingredients are see-through and measuring lines are below the rim to avoid spills. For the most accurate measurement, put the cup on a flat surface and look at the measuring line at eye level.
It’s difficult to make an accurate measurement of dry ingredients in a liquid cup, especially fine ingredients like sugar and flour, because you can’t sweep off the extra above the measuring line. (Don’t pat or shake down flour because it will settle and compact and throw off your recipe.)
Using a liquid cup for chunky items like nuts and cranberries is OK.
Don’t even think about using “teaspoons” or “tablespoons” from your flatware drawer. They are not accurate. Use real measuring spoons. For dry ingredients sweep across the top of the spoon with the flat side of a knife, or the lip of some ingredients like baking soda.
Do not, repeat do not, measure over your mixing bowl. There’s too much chance for spilling into your batter. This a lesson learned from experience.
Do not over mix chemically leavened batters (Think: baking soda and baking powder) for muffins and other products like cakes, cookies and pastries. If you over mix, gluten strands will form and the end product will be tough and rubbery.
Gluten, the stretchy protein that forms when wheat flour and water mix, gives structure to baked goods. Hardy yeast-raised doughs, like breads, must have strong gluten strands to give structure to the product as it rises and bakes.
Rotate the baking pans in the middle of the baking process to ensure even baking.
Cooling on a wire rack enables the muffin or baked good to cool down evenly and quickly, because the air can circulate around them.
For this recipe, I made both full-size and mini muffins. I added a quarter cup of shredded carrots to half of the batter, which added more moisture and sweet flavor.
Watch the cooking time — I over baked this batch and the muffins are dry. Start checking with a toothpick at least two minutes before the end of the baking time.
They were not burnt. I topped them with a sweet-tart cream cheese and Greek yogurt mixture available at Fry’s and nibbled them with a cup of coffee.
The muffins are in the freezer. Thanksgiving morning just got easier.
