I’ve been thinking about setting up at a local farmers’ market this summer to sell some of my baked goodies. Today I thought I would try out a few recipes I found online. I love english muffins so I thought I’d have a stab at making my own. Did you know that english muffins are actually made by cooking them on a griddle? I didn’t.  After the dough has risen they are  shaped and sprinkled with corn meal on both sides.

Mine came out a little smaller that I expected, so I’ll make them larger next time when dividing the dough. Here are a few of them hanging out in the frying pan (5 minutes per side is all it takes), and another shot showing the second side that doesn’t get as browned as the first side. I always wondered why that happens and now I know:  it’s because after they cook on the first side, they rise a little bit into a dome shape in the pan and when you flip them over, not as much of the muffin touches the cooking surface.

I split them with a fork and tasted one with some homemade raspberry jam. YUM! They are delicious, and pretty simple to make with my stand mixer doing all the hard kneading work.

While I was waiting for the dough to rise, I found some recipes for Cinnamon Bread. I wanted to make the kind that is rolled and when you cut it you get a nice spiral in the middle of the loaf.

Here’s a shot of the first loaf from the inside.

Looks pretty tasty, right? Well, the cinnamon and sugar oozed out all over the place and the side of the loaf kind of caved in when I was trying to get it out of the pan (the sugar made it stick)  The loaf also seemed to split open and come un-rolled a bit, even though I pinched the dough together along the seam really well and baked it seam-side down. The picture of the outside of the loaf isn’t quite as attractive:-( It ended up almost like a great big sticky cinnamon roll which is fine if that’s what you’re trying to make.

The good news is that it tastes wonderful!

Back to the drawing board to try for a loaf that looks a bit prettier. My second try is in the oven right now. I reduced the sugar filling, used white instead of brown sugar and I tried an egg wash on the dough to ‘stick’ the cinnamon mixture rather than butter this time. So far so good- nothing is oozing out yet. I’ll post pictures when they are cooled and I’ve sliced into them.

The other good news is that it smells fantastic in the house today!

Next I want to try making mini blueberry pies. I watched Anna Olsen making mini cherry pies on Food Network recently and they looked great. Unfortunately it’s not easy to find tart cherries around here. Plenty of sweet cherries, but they aren’t ideal for baking.