Good things on the horizon

Day 2 of culinary school, still no baking going on.

But at least there's the promise of baking!

We went over the syllabus for the Baking Techniques course (which meets Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and it looks awesome. Pretty much bread, bread and more bread. Every type of bread you can imagine -- lean dough, enriched dough, laminated dough (that means baguettes, brioche and puff pastry, just to name a few).

I can hardly wait to get started.

We did spend some time in the kitchen today, though. But instead of baking anything, we gave it a good scrub down. The kitchen was already pretty clean; the exercise was mostly to familiarize the class (most of whom are new to Washburne Culinary) with our work space. My few fellow returning students and I got to "delegate," aka tell the newbies what to do. So, that was fun. But I did my fair share of scrubbing, too.

I'm hoping we'll get to make some focaccia tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Speaking of that, I see that I've crossed the threshold of my 100th post here on Flour Girl. Thanks so much to all of you regular readers. Sorry for the lack of fanfare.

In lieu of fanfare, I'll give you a muffin recipe.

These are good.

Make them.

Raspberry Surprise-Inside Muffins

Adapted from Lori's Best-Ever Muffins recipe on allrecipes.com

Makes 12 muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoons salt

3/4 cup white sugar, plus more for fruit and sprinkling

1 egg

1 cup milk (or combination of milk and yogurt)

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup raspberries, coarsely chopped and tossed with 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon flour

12 teaspoons jam of your choice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Make a well in the center. In a small bowl, beat the egg with a fork. Stir in milk and oil. Pour all at once into the well in the flour mixture. Mix quickly and lightly with a fork just until moistened. DO NOT OVERBEAT. Gently fold in the raspberries.

Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with non-stick spray.

Fill each cup 1/3 of the way with batter. Top each with 1 teaspoon of jam. Top another 1/3 of the way with batter. Sprinkle with sugar (turbinado, if you've got it.)

Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden.

Cool for 5 minutes in the pan before removing to a wire rack.