Pumpkin Muffins

I'm on vacation right now, right this instant. I'm sitting in the cottage, my grandfather is passed out on the couch in front of me, there's some boat show on TV and I can hear my grandmother busily preparing both lunch and dinner in the kitchen (yes, you read that right). My aunts, uncles and cousins are all expected to show up sometime today and it's going to be a big, crazy family get together. However as I have no internet, by the time you read this I will be home again, beginning the second leg of my vacation, which may or may not include, restaurants, day trips and uhm... more video games ... ('till all are one!).

I made these muffins the weekend before my mother's birthday. Pumpkin bread is her favourite and she gets googly eyed everytime I bake it. But I didn't just want to make the same old again, I wanted to change it up a little, serve it warm, and surprise my mom for breakfast in the morning. So I decided to morph the recipe into muffins, something that can be done with most quick breads, but this time I would replace all the oil with Greek yogurt.

Low Calorie Strawberry Muffins

Good

I wasn't sure if I was going to bother posting this recipe or not, but decided that these muffins were pretty good despite my attempts to mangle them. This is one of those times where I both intentionally and unintentionally meddled with a recipe, yet it still managed to come out pretty well, if not a tad ugly.

It's a relatively quick and simple recipe, which I was mostly drawn to as a way to use up some leftover strawberries, not to mention that it had been a while since I made muffins. I was also pretty happy with the fact that they were lighter than the average muffin, so you don't have to feel bad if you eat more than one (or two).

Low Fat Blueberry Chocolate Chip Chocolate Muffins

When it comes to muffins I prefer simple and pure flavours more than complex concoctions. I typically don't enjoy more than one or two flavours at anyone time. Part of the reason is that for me a muffin is for breakfast and not a dessert, so it should be simple like breakfast. This also means that I typically avoid any sweet additions to my muffins, like chocolate.

But on this particular weekend (full disclosure: this weekend was about four weeks ago) I really had a craving for chocolate, but didn't necessarily want cake unless it was a cupcake, and I didn't feel like making cupcakes because of the frosting obligation (or looks of disappointment when I mention there is no frosting). However it occurred to me that all this could be resolved with chocolate muffins. And as it just so happened I had some leftover blueberries in the fridge, making chocolate blueberry muffins not only a possibility but a sure thing.

Low Fat Banana Bran Muffins

Banana bran muffins are something I have wanted to bake for a while. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Would it taste more like a banana muffin with bran or a bran muffin with banana? I chose Mother's day morning to find out. I mean what better day to experiment than Mother's Day :)? It's the thought that counts, right? Even if the muffins were a disaster I was covered because my brother’s and I did Mother’s Day up right. They should take the credit for most of the “cooking” but I'll take the credit for inspiring them :). From the beginning I had intended to get up and make waffles and muffins, but knowing that my Mother prefers “breakfast” breakfast my brother’s decided to make eggs, bacon and sausage too. Does it get any better? (well perhaps, there was no peanut butter after all… CURSES!).

Oatmeal Raisin Cookie Muffins

I was pretty sure I was going to make brownies this weekend but then Saturday morning hit. Normally on a Saturday I try to sleep in until 10 before getting up for my run (I miss the days when 10AM was more likely to be the time I went to sleep). I'm not exactly sure what happened but I didn't leave my bed until 12:30. And I didn't end up finishing breakfast until just south of 3PM. You know what? I wouldn't have changed a thing. It felt good but made baking anything unlikely. Besides, barring the sun going super nova or the world's supply of peanuts being destroyed (why live?), I was pretty sure that tomorrow (i.e. Today) would be a brand new day.

It is my opinion that the best time to bake on a Sunday is in the morning. I like to start before everyone is up so that it's ready when they are. But what to bake? First thought: don't do muffins, you always do muffins. Second thought: muffins are awesome :). So muffins it would be. I had sifted through my bookmarks Saturday night and found this recipe; a muffin that tastes like an oatmeal cookie. Why haven't I made these yet? Further proof that I've lost those last key bits of sanity.

Low Fat Jumbo Bran Muffins

This isn't a new recipe. It's my current favourite Raisin Bran Muffin sans raisins, and sans oil, and that's where it gets interesting :).

Blackberry Honey Muffins

Last Saturday we celebrated my Grandmother's birthday. The plan as told to me and as I expected would be for the family to meet at my Grandparents' place sometime after dinner, we would give her her gift, stay for a few hours, and then leave her in peace. It was her birthday after all, why should she have to bother with our mess? But My Grandmother, being my Grandmother, had other ideas and chose instead to run around with platters of cheeses, homemade pizza, and other finger foods. The woman just doesn't stop. We all ate a lot (well I did) and it was topped off by a awesomely rich and chocolatey cake baked by my Aunt, also known as the Cake Decorating Phenom, or as I call her, "Auntie make me look bad."

We surprised my Grandmother with a new Kitchen Aid mixer. Her current mixer (and I use that term loosely) is a travesty of justice. When I baked cookies with my Grandmother before Christmas I actually watched her manually spin the bowl after the mixer got bogged down whipping egg whites (yes, I said egg whites). Upon opening her gift we awaited her first comments, my grandmother like most mothers never wants anything for her birthday.

There were a few possibilities: The first, "How am I supposed to carry this?"; Second, "this is going to be difficult to clean"; Third, "where am I supposed to put it?." I have actively witnessed my Grandfather fetching ( :) ) the current mixer for my Grandmother, so I didn't bet on the first option, my mother thought otherwise and moved all in (I hear that there was also some betting action on the side between my mother and my aunts, but I'm not sure of the outcome).

Anyway back to the story...

Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins

I've been struggling to find something to bake all week. Monday is family day in Ontario (and other parts of Canada) so I kind of wanted to do something family-ish, which to me means breakfast :). When I was younger we always ate dinner as a family, but it was the special occasions that we enjoyed breakfast together. My Mother is awesome at making a great breakfast (as well as lunch and dinner :)). Although I wasn't going to make an entire meal, I did want to bake something that everyone would enjoy. But most recipes I looked at just seemed to rich, too indulgent. I was feeling a little healthier.

Normally, I tend to lean a little to the healthy side when baking. Often reducing unnecessary sugars and fats. The only exceptions are when I am baking for someone else or a special occasion. Not to mention that if I did proceed with all indulgent all the time I would face accusations of caloric overload since I “make” people eat what I bake (apparently leaving something on the counter is the same as “make,” I'm obviously quite strong in the Force). So with the equation: Family + Breakfast + Healthy firmly in hand I came to an answer of Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins.

Baked Ginger Doughnut-Muffins

I like doughnuts. A lot. I like plain doughnuts, iced doughnuts, sugared doughnuts, dipped doughnuts, fresh doughnuts, supermarket doughnuts, well you get the idea (no sprinkles though, bleh). I can eat doughnuts like some eat potato chips and I'm willing to throw down with Homer Simpson any day. It's for this reason that I rarely eat doughnuts. You see, I have grown somewhat accustomed to being able to see my feet without the use of a reflective surface. Because of this, the idea of a baked doughnut is instantly appealing. As well, making real doughnuts requires being around a lot of hot oil, which would likely bestow a future of bad Christmas sweaters and a glove with knives.

Refrigerator Bran Muffins

I realize I already have a bran muffin recipe on the site, and I also realize that I really enjoyed those bran muffins. However, the instant appeal of these muffins was that they were advertised as “refrigerator proof,” that is, the batter can be completely mixed and put in the fridge for up to 30 days and when you feel like fresh muffins, just scoop and go. I thought my celebratory breakfast would be a great testing ground for them. I prepared the batter on Saturday afternoon (shortly before making my PB and Chocolate Rice Krispies Treats) and stuck it in the fridge for the next morning.

Bananito Wheat Bran Muffins

In my defence this recipe was not meant to be an experiment. However, I was intentionally playing around with two things. First, the original recipe called for oat bran, which I did not use because a) I had so much bloody wheat bran and b) I didn't have any oat bran. Realistically the only difference between the two should be the texture of the muffin. The second thing I played with were the bananas. I decided to use bananitos instead.

The heck is a bananito you ask? I asked myself that very same question. Basically they're tiny sweeter bananas that taste like a banana-strawberry-apple hybrid. And what could be better than that? (Unless of course there was a magical banana-strawberry-apple-peanut butter hybrid). Obviously before baking with them I had to try one out and although they were definitely sweeter then the average banana the flavour was so interesting that I had to use them in a banana recipe. But which one?

"Healthy" Jumbo Blueberry Oatmeal Raisin Bran Muffins

I am the type of person who does things in an "all or nothing" fashion.  When baking this typically results in the monstrosity you see here. I decided to experiment on my Raisin Bran Muffin recipe from the previous week and no ingredient was left behind (for the most part). First, here's a warning: These are healthy muffins (I'm sure you deduced that from the title) which I promptly offset by making them quite large :).

So here's what I did: whole wheat flour, reduce wheat bran, add a cup of old fashioned oats, reduce sugar amount and replace with honey, oil to applesauce (one of the most common health related replacement), and Power Ranger the raisins into blueberries. Do I get any credit for not touching the baking powder or salt?

Jumbo Raisin Bran Muffins

My favourite muffin by far is Raisin Bran.  It's not often that I eat them, a few times a year perhaps, but I have loved them since I was a kid and other then those couple of years when I was tempted by the more cake inspired blueberry muffins, my love has never wavered.

Strangely enough, and much like chocolate chip cookies, I have never actually made a Bran Muffin.  I usually make banana or blueberry or some variation.  My mother used to make box mix Bran Muffins all the time and I remember how great it was to eat them warm out of the oven.  Maybe I didn't want to make something from scratch that wouldn't hold up to the boxed mix my Mother used.  (That would hurt a bit :)).

But this recipe (and my alterations) did not disappoint.  Since I have never made them and I wanted to REALLY enjoy them I decided that these muffins needed to be JUMBO (really the only thing better then a good Raisin Bran Muffin, is a huge Raisin Bran Muffin :)), something else I have never done.    This also gave me the perfect opportunity to use my newly purchased Jumbo Muffin tins, and I am very glad that I did.

Low Calorie, Whole Wheat, Oatmeal, Kinda Zucchini But Really Allspice Muffins

So these muffins were the official goal for my normal Saturday baking. As with the previous night's Plum Cake Disaster I tempted fate by experimenting with the recipe. Since I had these gigantic mutant zucchinis that my cousin grew (I swear he injects them with some type of vegetable steroid) I felt that I should make either zucchini muffins or zucchini bread. Muffin add ins are pretty interchangeable and I couldn't find any bread recipes that I liked, so I settled on finding a carrot muffin recipe and replacing the carrot with zucchini.