17. Leave Room for Them to Spread

Vera: Last time we poured batter into a hot skillet, and the children ate their wedges of cornbread on the back step while the sparrows lined up along the fence. That bread was for eating warm, at once. Today I asked Anton for something different, something the children can carry to school in a tin.

Anton: Then oat and raisin biscuits. They keep for days, they travel well, and the mixture is so stiff and forgiving that even the smallest hands can roll it.

The Houseboat Below the Bridge, Long Ago

Vera: These were the first biscuits I ever ate warm. When I was eight, a woman named Hester lived on a houseboat moored below the stone bridge, and her kettle rocked on the stove whenever a barge went by.

Vera: She baked oat biscuits for the lock keepers, and if we children sat quietly on her deck and did not rock the boat, she passed us one each through the little round window. They tasted of brown sugar and smoke from her stove.

Anton: Did you sit quietly?

Vera: For a biscuit, I could sit as still as a heron in the reeds.

Mid-Morning, Two Trays Ready

Vera: Arvo has two baking trays balanced on his knees on the bench under the coat hooks, and he is asking why we need two. One would hold them all, he says.

Anton: One would hold them all now, and none of them later. These biscuits spread in the oven like ripples on a pond. Leave room for them to spread, three fingers' width between each one, or they melt into one great biscuit.

Vera: Where do they come from?

Anton: From the northern lands, where oats grow in the wet wind. Families who crossed the ocean to the far west took their oats with them, then added raisins and brown sugar, and the oat biscuit grew rounder and sweeter on the way.

At the Work Table

For about 20 biscuits: 115 g soft butter (1/2 cup), 100 g brown sugar (1/2 cup), 1 egg, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 125 g plain flour (1 cup), 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, a pinch of salt, 135 g rolled oats (1 1/2 cups) and 75 g raisins (1/2 cup). Oven at 180°C (350°F).

Anton: A grown-up heats the oven to 180°C (350°F) and lines two trays with baking paper.

Anton: A child beats the butter and sugar with a wooden spoon for about three minutes, until pale and soft.

Vera: Why beat it so long?

Anton: Beating pushes tiny pockets of air into the butter, like the bubbles in sea foam, and they make the biscuits lighter.

Anton: A child beats in the egg and the vanilla, then stirs in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, and last of all the oats and raisins.

Anton: The children roll the mixture into balls the size of a walnut, about one heaped tablespoon each, and set them on the trays 5 cm (2 inches) apart. Press each one a little flat with the fingers. Damp hands keep the mixture from sticking.

Anton: A grown-up bakes one tray at a time for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are golden and the middles still look soft. Two minutes longer makes them crisp instead of chewy.

Anton: The grown-up takes the tray out in oven gloves. Leave the biscuits on the hot tray for five minutes, then move them to a rack. They keep for five days in a tin.

Vera: And if a child does not like raisins?

Anton: Use chopped dried apricots, chocolate pieces or a handful of seeds. Seeds and nuts can make some people very ill, so anyone with an allergy should check every ingredient first.

Out Under the Apple Tree

Question: Arvo asks why the biscuits come out while their middles still look soft.

Answer: The hot tray keeps cooking them for a few minutes more, and they firm up as they cool, like clay on a riverbank drying in the wind. If they look done in the oven, they will be hard by teatime.

Three quick questions. One: How far apart do the biscuits go on the tray? Two: How long do they bake? Three: How long do they stay on the hot tray?

Answers. One: 5 cm (2 inches). Two: 10 to 12 minutes. Three: Five minutes.

Vera: Arvo has packed six in a tin already, for school, and is eating a seventh, to make sure they are good enough to share.

Anton: Then pour him a glass of cloudy apple juice, cold, pressed from autumn apples. Oats and apples have grown side by side in the same cool fields for a very long time, and they still like each other's company.

18. Twelve Strokes, Then Stop

Anton: Many cooks believe that a muffin batter must be beaten smooth, with every lump chased out, the way you would beat a cake. It is not so. A smooth muffin batter makes a tough muffin.

Vera: I have been beating them smooth for forty years.

Anton: And they were good, I am sure. They would have been better lumpy. Twelve strokes, then stop. The lumps vanish in the oven, and what is left is light and tender, with a high, cracked top like a hill after a dry summer.

Vera: Then why does almost everyone get it wrong?

Anton: Because cakes teach us the opposite. A cake has so much butter and sugar that long beating cannot make it tough. A muffin has much less of both, so every extra stroke shows.

Tuesday, Late Morning

Vera: Elsa is at the far end of the table, beside the cheese board, nibbling a corner of cheese when she thinks no one is watching. She wants to know why a muffin can have cheese in it instead of sugar.

Anton: Because a muffin is only a small quick bread baked in a cup. In the farm kitchens of the cool west, where cheese is made in every valley, cooks bake them with cheese and garden herbs to eat beside soup or to carry out to the fields.

Vera: Which herbs?

Anton: Whatever grows on your windowsill. Chives, parsley or a little thyme. Soft herbs can be snipped with scissors, so the children do that. A handful of sweetcorn or chopped ham can go in too, if you like.

The Square Under the Chestnut Tree, Long Ago

Anton: Years ago I baked bread in a mountain town in the south. Next to my oven, in the shade of a great chestnut tree, Carmo sold cheese, with whole wheels stacked beside her stall like millstones.

Anton: She watched me stir a batter one morning and laughed. You are beating it like a carpet, she said. Leave it alone and it will love you. She handed me a heel of hard cheese and told me to grate it in and stir no more than twelve times. Those muffins sold out before noon.

Vera: And after that?

Anton: After that, every morning, she counted my strokes out loud from her stall, and half the square counted with her.

At the Herb Pots on the Sill

Question: Elsa asks why too much stirring spoils a muffin.

Answer: Stirring wet flour makes stretchy strands grow inside it. A few strokes keep the muffin tender. Many strokes make it chewy and full of long tunnels, like the paths a mole digs under a lawn.

Three quick questions. One: How many strokes does the batter need? Two: Are lumps in muffin batter a mistake? Three: Which herbs can a child snip?

Answers. One: About twelve, until no dry flour shows. Two: No, they vanish in the oven. Three: Soft herbs such as chives and parsley.

At the Work Table

For 12 muffins: 250 g plain flour (2 cups), 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, a pinch of pepper, 100 g hard cheese, grated (1 cup), 2 tablespoons chopped chives or parsley, 1 egg, 240 ml milk (1 cup) and 80 ml oil (1/3 cup). A 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Oven at 200°C (400°F).

Anton: A grown-up heats the oven to 200°C (400°F). A child sets a paper case in each hole of the tin.

Anton: A grown-up grates the cheese, because a grater bites knuckles. An older child may help, slowly, with a grown-up watching. Keep back a small handful for the tops.

Anton: A child snips the herbs into a cup with kitchen scissors, a grown-up close by.

Anton: A child mixes the flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, cheese and herbs in a large bowl.

Anton: A child beats the egg, milk and oil together in a jug, pours it into the bowl and stirs with a big spoon about twelve times, until no dry flour shows. Lumpy is right.

Anton: The children spoon the batter into the cases, filling them nearly to the top, and scatter the saved cheese over them.

Anton: A grown-up bakes them for 18 to 22 minutes, until risen and golden and a skewer comes out clean. Take the tin out in oven gloves, keeping faces back from the steam, leave the muffins for five minutes, then lift them out. They are best warm and keep for two days; warm them again in a low oven.

Vera: Elsa has counted every stroke out loud, just like Carmo. Twelve exactly.

Anton: Then they will love her. Split one open while it still steams, add a little butter, and listen to the crust crackle like dry leaves underfoot in October.