Of Spiders And Muffins

It's a well known fact in my family that I hate/fear/loathe spiders. I hate their legs, their webs, and the way they scuttle around, jump at you, or drop unexpectedly on your neck or head. (Excuse me a minute while I slap repeatedly at my head and neck because that creepy feeling I got just now might have been a spider.) I know they have their place in the grand design of the universe, but my place in that same design happens to be standing over them with a heavy shoe poised for the kill. But that's only if no one else is in the house. If my husband is home, then he's the one to gallantly spring to action when he hears my piteous shrieks of terror. He'll calmly take a piece of tissue and squish the spider (with his bare hands!) and toss it into the toilet, which I hurriedly flush, just in case that spider's planning a comeback.

It would surprise my family to know I have an uneasy relationship with a spider in my laundry room. This is not the kind of relationship where I name the spider an endearing name, become attached to it, and it weaves messages to me in it's web. No, we have an agreement. The agreement goes something like this: I promise to not hunt him down in his hidey hole next to the washing machine as long as he traps and consumes the other bugs that lurk in there, keeps the webbing to a minimum, and does not show his creepy legs during daylight hours.

When I stretch the terms of the agreement and go into the laundry room at 5:00 am, it is his responsibility to scuttle out of sight and it's my part of the bargain to pretend I don't see him. If he chooses to linger, a quick, squashy death brought about by my shoe or the nearest heavy, hurlable object is in his immediate future.

This might sound harsh, but I don't waste time being sentimental with spiders. I either shriek, throw, or stomp, all the while hyperventilating. I figure I'm showing great restraint in not asking my husband to introduce Mr. Spider to Death By ShopVac.

Oh, crud - I just named him! What's next? Allowing his webs to stay up, festooning the laundry room with cobwebs filled with dryer lint? Looking for cryptic messages in those webs? Opening the window to purposefully allow flies to come in so he won't starve? Spending my time in the laundry room talking to him??

No, this must stop right now. I'm going to march down there and put an end to this weird, permissively symbiotic relationship. With a shoe. Which is in my closet. Which I can't get to without waking up my husband. Hmmmm.

Mr. Spider is looking pretty big these days, approaching the size of a Smart car. Maybe I'll just wait for my husband to wake up and let him deal with Mr. Spider.

And while I'm waiting, I'll bake up a batch of attaboy treats. Muffins. A terrific way to start the day! Plus, since they're grain-free and contain no sugars, they won't spike your blood sugar and leave you feeling lethargic and groggy, which you absolutely shouldn't be if you're going to do battle with spiders!

Banana Blueberry Muffins
- adapted from The Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookbook

3 cups almond meal
1/4 tsp sea salt
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 large eggs
2 cups (4-5) mashed very ripe bananas
1 cup frozen blueberries

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. (Don't omit the paper liners. It makes a HUGE difference at clean up time.)

2-In a large bowl, combine the almond meal, salt, and baking soda.

3- In a medium bowl, whisk together the olive oil and eggs. Stir the wet ingredients into the almond meal mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the bananas, then fold in the blueberries. Using a large spoon or scoop, divide the dough between the muffin cups.

4- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

5- Set the muffin tin on a wire cooling rack and let the muffins cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then serve. Preferably with lots of good butter!

Treat Food That's Really a Treat

Becoming a parent transforms the way you look at the world. As you clutch your newborn baby to your chest, the world becomes, in the blink of an eye, a frightening place, fraught with lurking dangers. Things which you never gave a thought to, prior to childbirth, now seem ominous. A staircase is a place of peril, with the possibility of tripping and falling ever before your eyes. The person sneezing in the grocery store might be spreading killer germs. Driving down the freeway with your infant strapped into the carseat brings on visions on car crashes and fiery death as you struggle to rescue that new, precious, helpless bundle. Why do you think there are so many cars on the road with Baby On Board signs?

As your child grows, you continue to keep a part of your heart in his or her body, cringing at every stubbed toe, bleeding at every scraped knee, wishing desperately you could protect him or her from all harm.

I think that parents of kids with food sensitivities have it even tougher than regular run-of-the-mill parents. A friend of mine discovered her son had a violent allergy to peanuts when a day care worker wiped the face of a boy who'd eaten a peanut butter sandwich and then used the same cloth to wipe her son's face. His face inflated like a playground ball! Panic!!

Always on guard, vigilant against what might be lurking inside a "treat" that's given to your child, early on you have to teach them the litany of "I can't have" foods. What a blessing, then, to find some "I CAN have" treats. Especially if you don't have to go to a specialty bakery and pay $6 a muffin for it!

The obvious solution for kids with special dietary issues is to make it yourself. Then you know exactly what went into it, you know it's safe, and if you find the right recipe, you can also make it delicious. (And, trust me, not every $6 muffin is delicious!)

I recently made these as a thank you for a super sweet mom who took my son for a week to a Vacation Bible School. Her son has gluten, soy, and egg allergies. She shared them with some other moms of food-issue kids and they all clamored for the recipe, so I'm bumping it up to the head of the posting queue.

I had a muffin before I gave them away (I can't give away untested food - it might be nasty!) and they are really good. Not just in a "not bad for gluten-free" way, but truly good. Moist, tasty, studded with blueberries, with a good texture, not gluey or brickish. Even if you're not going gluten-free, you'll enjoy them!


GF, Egg-free Blueberry Muffins
- adapted from The Spunky Coconut

1 cup almond meal flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour (the same thing as tapioca starch)
1/2 cup coconut flour
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp baking powder*
1/2 cup dried blueberries
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 tsp xantha gum or guar gum (they're interchangeable; the xanthan gum is more expensive)
1 Tbsp flax seed meal
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup milk (substitute coconut milk if dairy is an issue)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Creme Liquid Stevia
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified

*If corn is an issue, you can make your own baking powder. Substitute 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cream of tartar, 1/2 tsp tapioca starch.

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Grease a 12-well muffin tin.

2- In a medium bowl combine the almond meal flour, tapioca flour, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder. Whisk together to break up any clumps. Stir in dried blueberries.

3- In a bowl combine the applesauce, guar gum, flax meal, and apple cider vinegar. Make sure there are no lumps.

4- To the applesauce mixture add the milk, stevia, honey, and coconut oil. Stir well.

5- Divide the batter between the muffin cups and bake for about 22 minutes.

They are delicious warm, or you can let them cool on a cooling rack.

When Life Gives You Tangelos, Make Muffins

I haven't been posting very regularly because there's been a lot of life going on. Some good, some bad, and some complicated. Whichever it is, though, it just needs to be dealt with.

Sometimes my refrigerator is kind of like my life. There are random things lurking in there that need to be dealt with. Various plastic tombs of forgotten bits of frosting, egg whites, and leftovers. Some have gone beyond the point of redemption. Those are pretty easy to deal with - if it's oozy, furry, or a different color from when it went into the refrigerator, I pitch it.

What's troubling are the things that I know are perfectly good, well, somewhat good, and I can't bear to throw them out. Then I have the conundrum of whether to leave it in the refrigerator until it fits the above criteria, or to get creative and figure out a way to use it up.

A recent purge of the fridge brought to light 2 half-used bags of cranberries. I know I bought the cranberries at Thanksgiving time, and it's gross that I still have them in March, but that's life. There were plenty of good berries in there among the shriveled, manky ones, so I couldn't just thrown them away, right?

I found a muffin recipe that calls for cranberries. Perfect! Except it also calls for an orange. I didn't have an orange, I had a tangelo. So that's what I used, figuring that in a muffin no one could tell the difference. Except my husband. He took a bite and asked, "What did you put in this? It tastes different." I explained the orange/tangelo paradigm, leveled him a look and said, "Deal with it." He quietly ate another bite and said, "It's good!" Smart man.

Tangelo Cranberry Muffins
- adapted from Muffins and Other Morning Bakes by Linda Collister

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup pecans, coarsely chopped
grated rind of 1 tangelo (or 1/2 an orange)
1 large egg
1-1/4 cups milk
2 tsp freshly squeezed tangelo (or orange) juice
1/4 cup melted butter or vegetable oil
1-2/3 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (picked over, yucky ones removed)

1- Preheat the oven to 425 deg. F. with a rack in the center of the oven. Grease a deep 12-cup muffin pan.

2- Sift the flours and baking powder into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar, pecans, and grated citrus rind.

3- In another bowl, lightly beat the egg with the milk, orange juice, and melted butter or vegetable oil. Add to the dry ingredients, stirring quickly with a wooden spoon until just mixed. It's OK if there are still traces of flour.

4- Add the cranberries and stir briefly, using as few strokes as possible. Do not overmix or your muffins will be tough.

5- Spoon into the prepared muffin pan, filling each cup about two-thirds full. Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Let cool in the pan for 1 minute, then turn out onto a wire rack. Eat warm or preferably within 24 hours. When cooled all the way, the muffins can be wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month.

My Favorite Whine

The weather's getting me down. I think I'm not alone here. Although the Pacific Northwest isn't being hit by the epic amounts of frozen global warming that the East and Central areas are (including Texas, freaking hot Texas almost couldn't host the Super Bowl because of drifts of the stuff!), we are under a cloud. Actually, lots of them. We're in that bleakest month of the year, February, where the predominant color theme is grey.

Vitamin D deficient, we stumble down the street clutching our coffee, hoping to find a lifeline in a paper cup of caffeine. It gets us through the day, but just barely. What we need is sunshine. Beautiful, warm, light sunshine.

What I want is a beach. A warm sandy beach where the sand is so soft it's like stepping on pillows. And, although the temperature is in the 80's (F), it never feels too hot because of the soft breezes that waft the elusive scent of plumeria over you. When the gentle warmth has seeped all the way into your bones, you can get up and take a few steps to the edge of the water, wade in, and cool off. The water is just the right temperature, cool enough to be refreshing, but warm enough that it doesn't take your breath away.



You see, what I really want is to pack my bags and go to Hawaii. What I did instead was make muffins. Tropical muffins. I threw together the flavors of the tropic - bananas, pineapples, would-have-been-coconut-but-I-couldn't-find-any-in-my-cupboard, and macadamia nuts. Then I could drape a lei over my neck, put Tiny Bubbles on my iPod, crank up the house heat, light a floral candle, and hula my way around the house, eating the taste of the tropics. My husband draws the line at importing a beach, though. The sand is a booger to get out of the carpet.

(I also put quite a bit of bran in the muffins. Hopefully that will help me live long enough to actually get to Hawaii! Or at least to outlive winter.)

Tropical Branana Mini Muffins
- adapted from The Complete Muffin Cookbook
makes about 36 mini muffins, or 12 regular ones

1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt
1 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup chopped dried pineapple
1/4 cup dried coconut
1/4 cup chopped macadamia nuts
3 ripe bananas, mashed (1-1/2 cups)
3/4 cup water
1 large egg
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp grated lemon peel OR 1/4 tsp lemon extract OR 1/8 tsp lemon oil


1- Preheat the oven to 375 deg. Lightly grease the insides of a mini muffin tin.

2- Into a large bowl sieve together the flours, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the wheat bran, pineapple, coconut, and macadamia nuts.

3- In a medium bowl whisk together the bananas, water, egg, vanilla, and lemon flavoring.

4- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. Stir just until mixed. Do not overstir!

5- Spoon the batter (I used a small cookie scoop) into the prepared tin. Fill each cup to the the top.

6- Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool muffins in the pan for 8 to 10 minutes before removing from the tin. (At this point I had to wash out my tin and regrease it for the second batch. If you've got more than one tin, lucky you!)

Reduced Guilt

As a child I adored doughnuts. I loved the pillowy softness of raised doughnuts, the super-sweet sugary icing, and, of course, the sprinkles. My very favorite doughnut, though, was a Bismark, a raised doughnut with a raspberry jelly filling. I'd get quite cross if I got a lemon-filled one, by accident, so I'd carefully look for the reddened exit wound before making my selection.

As I grew up a bit, my tastes changed. I found maple bars too cloying, chocolate icing not very chocolatey, and too my surprise, I found that the formerly spurned cake doughnuts were not bad at all. So long as they were not dry day-olds, they, too, could be delicious.

But also as I grew up and sampled many doughnuts, I grew out. Eventually I realized that a lifestyle that included a lot of doughnuts did not include buttoning the top button on my jeans, so I gave up doughnuts. To me, they just weren't worth the calories. Every once in a blue moon, I'd yearn for a doughnut, buy one, take a bite, and be done.

But what if I could have that delicious doughnut flavor without frying? In a muffin? Muffins are healthy, right? That was the train of thought I took when I spied the latest temptation from King Arthur's Kitchen. It looked insanely delicious, but it lacked something....filling!

I ladled a teapoon of marionberry jam in the batter, hoping that it wouldn't sink or make the whole muffin gooey. It worked perfectly! It was a hidden surprise that elevated the muffin from really good to ohmygoshthisiswonderful (mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs).

Next time I make them I think I'll increase the jam to a tablespoon. That will mean that there will be a bit of batter left over, making perhaps 15 muffins instead of 12, but I think it'll be worth the extra hassle.

Jam-Filled Doughnut Muffins
- adapted from King Arthur Flour

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 to 1 1/4 teaspoons ground nutmeg, to taste
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 2/3 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 cup milk
1/4 cup favorite jam (or more, as desired)

TOPPING
3 tablespoons melted butter
3 tablespoons cinnamon sugar

1- Preheat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease a standard muffin tin.

2- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter, vegetable oil, and sugars till smooth. Add the eggs, beating to combine.

3- Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla.

4- Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined.

5- Spoon the batter into the tins, filling them about halfway. Carefully spoon a teaspoon of jam into the center of each well. Spoon the remaining batter over the tops of each muffin, making sure the jam blob is totally covered and sealed in.

6- Bake the muffins for 15 to 17 minutes, or until they're a pale golden brown and a cake tester inserted near the center of one of the center muffins comes out clean.

7- Remove them from the oven, and let them cool for a couple of minutes, or until you can handle them. While they're cooling, melt the butter for the topping (this is easily done in the microwave). I used a small heat-proof bowl with a rounded bottom (like a wok shape). Put the cinnamon sugar in a similar bowl.

8- Holding the muffins by the base, dip the tops of muffins into the melted butter, then dip them in the cinnamon-sugar.

9- Serve warm, or cool on a rack and wrap airtight. Store for a day or so at room temperature. ( I stored mine in a covered container and they stayed moist and delicious for three days).
Yield: 12 muffins.

Let Me Twist Your Arm

I may be mild-mannered in most respects, but I do possess one skill which borders on super-hero quality - I'm really good at rationalizing. If you're on a budget, you don't want to go shopping with me. I have freakish powers of persuasion when it comes to getting friends to buy things they want but know they shouldn't spend the money on. I can set out a line of reasoning which, when followed to the end, leads to the inevitable conclusion that to buy the dress (purse, shoes, handbag, or 20 lb. brick of chocolate) is not only reasonable, it's downright sensible.

I know that I must use my super-power only for good, so I try to reign it in when I know friends are really attemptin to watch their pennies. But my super skill is not limited to shopping; it carries over to eating.

I was the first person I knew to propose that chocolate is actually health food. Long before there was all this talk of antioxidants, I held that chocolate came from beans, and everyone knows beans are an important component of a healthy diet. Therefore, it was prudent to include chocolate in your diet every day.


Everyone knows muffins are healthy, right? Cupcakes are decadent treats, but muffins are just bundles of nutrition, appropriate for any time of day. But if you add chocolate to the muffins, you're making it super food, the dietary equivalent of a bullet train, speeding nutrition and antioxidants to your body. And if you add chocolate in three forms, plus buttermilk, plus whole wheat flour, well, don't walk to the kitchen to make these - RUN!

Double Chocolate Chocolate Muffins
- adapted from The Complete Muffin Cookbook

1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
6 Tbsp cocoa powder
1-1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
3/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup coarsely chopped milk chocolate

1-3/4 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1- Preheat the oven to 400 deg. F. Grease a muffin tin. This recipe yields 12 big muffins or 18-24 average size muffins.

2- Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the chocolate chips and chopped chocolate and sitr to combine.

3- Whisk the wet ingredients in a medium bowl or blend in a food processor. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. Stir just until mixed. Do not overstir.

4- Spoon the batter into a greased muffin tin. Fill each cup nearly to the top.

5- Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

6- Cool the muffins at least 10 minutes before removing from the tin.

Be Good to Yourself

When I asked my chiropractor what he had lined up for New Year's Eve, he told me that he skipped parties so that he could get up early on New Year's Day and go cross country skiing. He loves to be the first one out in the snow, breaking a trail through the pristine, sparkling landscape, having quiet time to think, review the year, and talk to God about what was coming up in the New Year.

I love that idea. Not enough to actually do it, though. I'm not a nature girl and being cold makes me cranky. But I love the mental picture of being alone and quiet, taking some time to reflect and plan, and setting goals for the new year.

That's why I got up early this morning. To be alone in nature - well, looking at the tropical beach calendar my husband got for Christmas - and to bake these muffins.

After the glut of Christmas and New Year indulgences, this muffin calls to me. It's my favorite bran muffin recipe with the twist of apple chunks and cranberries. I recommend that you bake a batch and then sit down with a cup of tea or mug of coffee to write up your aspirations for the coming year. Whatever your goals are, I wish you a happy and healthy 2010!



Apple Cranberry Bran Muffins

2 cups All-Bran cereal (the kind that looks like twigs)
1-1/4 cups milk
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 small apple, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks*
1/2 cup fresh cranberries, halved


1- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray. (Your muffins will climb higher if you don't use cupcake papers)

2- In a large mixing bowl, combine bran cereal and milk. Let stand for about 2 minutes to soften the cereal.

3- Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

4- Into the softened bran mix stir the egg and oil. Beat well. Stir in the apple and cranberries. Add the flour mixture, stirring only until combined. Divide the batter evenly into 12 muffin cups.

5 - Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Best served warm.

* I'm really lazy and when a recipe says to peel, core, and chunk an apple, I skip the coring step and just cut hunks off the apple and then chunk it up. Saves having to wash my corer.

Baking Notes: If you go overboard on the apples and cranberries, you'll add a lot of volume to the batter and might end up with enough for more than 12 muffins.

In Which I Get Creative and Learn About Pans

When I received my copy of You Made That Dessert? I went through and put in sticky notes to mark all the stuff I wanted to make. Then my husband did the same thing. And my daughter. The poor book looks like it got ambushed in a Post-it note war!

When I had a pile of bananas going south on my counter I remembered the promising recipe in there for Peanut Butter Banana bread. Except I didn't want to make bread. I wanted to make muffins. I love how muffins are just hand-sized; perfect for grabbing on the way out the door, sitting by a mug of tea at breakfast time, or as a snack for a child who's knife skills don't extend to non-massacre of a loaf.

As I understand it, basically any quick bread loaf can be converted to muffins. I was unsure, though, about how many muffins the recipe would yield and how long cooking time should be. I greased up my trusty standard muffin tin that my mother-in-law gave me years and years ago and filled the wells two-thirds full. It yielded 17 muffins. Odd number. Which got me to thinking. I've made muffins before and the numbers didn't quite match up. So I went to the source - Martha. According to Cupcakes, a standard-sized muffin tin should hold 4 oz. of batter. Assuming this meant 4 fluid oz (which is the stupidest unit of measure EVER) I poured 1/2 a cup of water into my tin. Well, I tried. My tin would only hold about 2/3 to 3/4 of that amount. What???

Apparently at some time in the last 20 years, the size of standard muffins, not unlike the size of standard Americans, has been revised upward. I've been baking with insufficient muffin tins! That would explain why some muffin recipes work and some come out dry and overbaked, or spill over the tin. Rats. Now I need a new tin to bake new recipes, but I also have to hold onto my old tins for my old recipes? And remember which is which? Way too much brain space to devote to muffins, people.

But some muffins are worth it. Like the ones that I made with the bananas. Banana bread with peanut butter stirred in. With chocolate chips. And nuts. Incredibly moist, amazingly delicious. I promise these will be a new favorite, whatever size you make them.

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
- adapted from You Made That Dessert?

1-1/4 cups (5.35 oz) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (not "natural")
2/3 cup sugar
3 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (I used regular chips and chopped them up a bit)

1- Preheat the oven to 350 deg. F. Spray the wells of a muffin tin with cooking spray.

2- In a small bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

3- In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat together the peanut butter and sugar together until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the mashed bananas and eggs and mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

4- Stir in the flour mixture with a spoon, mixing just until combined. Stir in the chopped nuts and the chocolate chips.

5- Divide the batter between the muffin tin wells, filling the wells 2/3 full. Depending on the size of your tins, you will get between 12 and 17 muffins.

6- Bake for 17 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

7- Let the muffins cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then remove them to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Once cooled, the muffins can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days. You can also tightly wrap the individual muffins in plastic wrap and store in the freezer for up to 1 month.

March Muffin Madness

One of the things that makes me really happy is figuring out how to do something myself. Although I don't do it often, I can make my own yogurt, ricotta cheese, or play doh. I love that moment of discovery, when I figure out that I don't have to run to the store for something.

For years I've purchased English muffins at the grocery store, 6 of them snuggled up together in their plastic sleeve. I always assumed that it took some sort of special commercial machinery to produce them, with that divot around the middle that says, "cut here." A few weeks ago my daughter asked for help with English muffins. I started searching cookbooks and the internet for recipes and was amazed at the number of variations there were. Some said you had to have 8 individual rings to cook the muffins in. Some called for lots of baking powder. Some called for none.

On a couple of blogs I found tasty looking muffins that were made using the King Arthur flour recipe, so I tried that. Oh, my! The grocery store muffins are but a pale imitation of the beautiful, light, fluffy English muffins I got with this recipe. I've become so enamored with it that I've made 3 batches of them. They are heavenly fresh off the griddle and very possibly even better when cooled and toasted.



And that little "cut me" divot? It happens all on it's own when you flip the muffins on the griddle. I felt so proud when I saw them. I'd made real English muffins! (Pats self on the back and reaches for the butter.)

Note: I have a nonstick griddle and it was only after the second batch that I figured out the cornmeal was scratching up the griddle surface. If your pan or griddle is non-stick, I don't recommend sprinkling it with cornmeal.

Heavenly English Muffins
- adapted from King Arthur Flour

1 3/4 cups (14 ounces) milk, warm
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) butter
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) granulated sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
4 to 4 1/4 cups (17 to 18 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached Bread Flour
2 teaspoons instant yeast

Place the ingredients in the pan of your bread machine following the manufacturer's instructions. Use the "dough" or "manual" setting. After the cycle is complete, transfer the dough to a cornmeal-sprinkled surface and roll it out until it's about 1/2-inch thick. The dough will be very soft and a bit sticky. Sprinkle the surface with a bit of flour, if needed, to roll out the dough. Cut out circles with a floured 3-inch cutter. Re-roll and cut out the leftover dough. Cover the muffins with a damp cloth and let rest for about 20 minutes.

Heat a frying pan or griddle to low heat. Do not grease, but sprinkle with cornmeal. Cook four muffins at a time, cornmeal side down first, for about 7 minutes a side.

Check after about 3 to 4 minutes to see that the muffins are browning gently and are neither too dark nor too light; if they seem to be cooking either too fast or too slowly, adjust the temperature of your pan or griddle.

When the muffins are brown on both sides, transfer them to a wire rack to cool, and proceed with the rest. If you have two frying pans (or a large griddle), you'll be better able to keep up with your rising muffins. Yield: 16 muffins.

Morning Muffins

I have a quick and easy way to check the temperature. When I get up in the morning, I look at my neighbor's roof. The amount of frost tells me how thick of a sweater I need to put on; recently it's been fairly frosty. When it's chilly out I'm always looking for excuses to warm up my kitchen by turning on the oven. The bag of pears on my counter and my Nigella cookbook gave me just the excuse - Ginger Pear Muffins.

I loved these muffins warm out of the oven. The chunks of pear are so soft that they almost merge with the surrounding muffin and the ginger adds a warm spiciness that makes them perfect breakfast fare for a chilly fall day.

I wanted to try adding candied ginger to them, but was unsure whether or not that would work, so I stirred it into 1/2 the batter. I think it worked best when the muffins were warm, as all the ingredients blended together beautifully then. Once cold the bits of ginger were much more distinct, and unless you are a huge ginger fan, they might be a bit off-putting.


Nigella suggest that in the evening you can combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and the wet ingredients in a large measuring cup, cover both with plastic wrap, and put the wet ingredients in the refrigerator overnight. Then in the morning all you have to do is peel and chunk the pears, stir it all together and bake. Does breakfast get any easier than that?

Pear and Ginger Muffins
- adapted from Nigella Express

1-3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup plus 6 tsp packed light brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
2/3 cup sour cream*
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 Tbsp honey
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups peeled and diced pears,
1/4 cup candied ginger, diced (optional)

1- Preheat the oven to 400 deg. F. and line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

2- Measure into a bowl the flour, granulated sugar, the 1/2 cup of brown sugar, baking powder, and ground ginger.

3- In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, oil, honey, and eggs, Add all at once to the dry ingredients and gently fold in.

4- Mix in the diced pear and candied ginger (if using) and divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

5- Sprinkle each one with 1/2 tsp brown sugar and bake for 20 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack. Best when eaten while still a bit warm.

* You can substitute non-fat plain yogurt for the sour cream, if you'd like to reduce the fat and calories a bit.

It's Diet Time

With the start of a new year, there is the promise of starting fresh. But, unfortunately, I still drag along the remnants of last year's excesses. Specifically, all the cookies I made and, more specifically, all the cookies I ate. I know I'm not alone in this boat. I've been seeing many bloggers posting their New Year's resolutions, which invariably include something along the lines of eating more healthily.* So it would be cruel of me to taunt and tempt you with mega-calorie taste sensations of cream, butter, and chocolate, knowing that you're trying to lose weight. Instead I offer you my wisdom and counsel from my years of experience in observing and participating in diets.

Dieting tips you don't find in diet books:

1. The calories don't count if you're standing. If you eat sitting down, you're closer to the floor, hence gravity pulls those calories straight to your hips and thighs. Stand up and the calories slide straight down and off.

2. The calories don't count if you eat from the container. Never, ever plate your food. That's where the calorie compounding occurs. Take bites straight from the container. Bonus points if you don't finish the whole thing and put it back in the refrigerator (or freezer, if you're eating ice cream).

3. If you eat from the container while standing, you're actually burning calories. Eating standing up and pacing is equivalent to a 20 minute aerobic workout.

3. The calories don't count if you eat off someone else's plate. That's just tasting or sharing, so those calories totally don't count.

4. Tidying calories don't count. If you wipe up stray frosting or straighten the edge on a pie, a pan of fudge, or a cake, that doesn't count.

4. If you take a chocolate from an assortment and don't like the one you get, those calories don't count. It's just not fair that you should pay the freight for a pineapple cream when you were thinking it was maple cream. And it would be gross to spit it out. So it's only good manners to eat it. And having the discipline to practice good manners with a mouthful of pineapple cream burns calories. So you're almost at a negative calorie situation.

5. Grapefruit has the effect of negating calories, so whatever you eat at the same time as a grapefruit doesn't count. The same for Diet Coke.

6. Food eaten in the car doesn't count. You know you're not really enjoying it.

8. Broken food has no calories. The half a cookie left on a plate is calorie free, as is the chip shards in the bottom of the potato chip bag.


There, hopefully those tips will help. And if you've still got some room after all that dieting, you might try these muffins. They're low calorie and low fat, but I like them anyway. They are deliciously moist, flavorful, with the added zip of cranberries. The only problem is eating just one. Well, if you're standing up, you could probably handle two.


Pumpkin-Cranberry Muffins
adapted from Cooking Light magazine

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 large egg
2/3 cup Craisins, sweetened dried cranberries

1- Preheat oven to 375 deg. F.

2 - Place 12 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. I used my new silicone cupcake holders on a baking tray, giving each a hit of cooking spray. They released beautifully.

3 - Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and next 5 ingredients (through cloves); stir well with whisk and set aside.

4 - Combine granulated sugar and next 5 ingredients (through egg) in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 3 minutes). Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed just until combined. Fold in the cranberries.

5 - Spoon batter into prepared cups. Bake at 375 deg. F. for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pan immediately; place on a wire rack.

Makes 1 dozen muffins, but my muffin cups overflowed when I made just 12, so when I made this recipe again and doubled it, I had 3 extra muffins (27 total when doubled).

~ 199 calories, 3.2 g. fat, 2.8 g protein, 1.5 g fiber 1.3 g iron, and 38 mg calcium. (There, don't you feel virtuous?)


* Here's the part where Grammar Girl goes on a rant. "Healthy" is an adjective. It is not a person, place or thing. You cannot eat Healthy, unless you named your pet goat Healthy and are now going to grill her. Healthily is an adverb, modifying a verb. So you can you use that word to describe the way you eat. If Grammar Girl sees another magazine article about "eating healthy" she will go round the bend and take her side-kick, Adverb Boy, and go slap someone upside the head with a healthy brick of tofu. Please don't force an adjective to do the heavy lifting that an adverb was made for!

Bran, It's Not Just For Seniors Anymore

My all-time favorite muffin is definitely blueberry, but a close second is bran muffins. I've been making the bran muffin recipe off the box of All Bran cereal since I was in high school, maybe even jr. high. It's never been a fiber issue for me, I just like the taste of the muffins.

Interestingly, they recently took the recipe off the box and replaced it with pictures of smiling, "regular" seniors. That ticked me off. I had to go to the website and print out the recipe. Then I discovered they'd tinkered with the recipe, cutting down on the fat. I tried it and it's just fine, still a moist tender muffin, but it got me to thinking about how else the recipe could be tweaked. An extra banana lying on the counter got me started and this is what I came up with. A plump, moist, lower fat muffin that has harmonious fruit and spice flavors added. Mmm, just what the doctor ordered.

Banana Bran and Raisin Muffins

2 cups Kellogg's All-Bran cereal
1-1/4 cups milk (fat free is fine, or whatever you have on hand)
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 banana, cut into small chunks
1/2 cup raisins

1- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray, or line with cupcake papers.

2- In a large mixing bowl, combine bran cereal and milk. Let stand for about 2 minutes to soften the cereal.

3- Stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a small bowl. Set aside.

4- Into the softened bran mix stir the egg and oil. Beat well. Stir in the banana and raisins. Add the flour mixture, stirring only until combined. Divide the batter evenly into 12 muffin cups.

5 - Bake about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Best served warm. And if you're not into the whole low-fat thing, slather on some butter. Yumm.

An Ode to Blueberries on a Frosty February Morn

One of the best things about living in the Northwest that almost makes up for the mildew is blueberries. I have blueberry bushes in my yard and my children love to run outside in the morning to pick some fresh berries to put on their cereal or just to pop into their mouths and savor the sweet, juicy, tartness.

Most years I try to purchase an additional 10 lbs or so to tuck away in the freezer for year round use. On years when I've really got it together, I take my kids blueberry picking. We bring out Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and read about Sal's adventures on Blueberry Hill with her little tin pail and then go to the blueberry farm with our own tin pails, although ours are plastic.

This year I had it moderately together. My friend and I took our kids blueberry picking, but we left it too late in the season. All of the easy to reach, fat clusters were gone. We had to reach for the few, small berries we could find and there was not much for our kids to do. While we tried to find enough berries to make the trip worthwhile our children were busy spotting toads in the irrigation ditches, playing house amongst the bushes, and generally complaining about the August heat. So, we eventually conceded that there was little point in staying and went home to enjoy the fruits of our labors.

I made muffins, a coffee cake, and froze the sad remainder, which I've been hoarding and using sparingly this winter.

This morning I woke up to find the ground covered in frost. Brrrr - aren't we done with winter yet? But what better time to use up the remainder of my precious blueberry stash? Muffins are in the oven and my children will be happy campers when they wake up!

My favorite blueberry muffin recipe is from Have Your Cake and Eat It Too by Susan Purdy, a holdover from my low-fat cooking days. It yields a nice, moist muffin that's not greasy. I like to double the batch, making 24 muffins so I have some to tuck into the freezer or share with friends and neighbors.

Old-Fashioned Blueberry Muffins

1 large egg
1/2 cup skim or 1% milk
1/2 cup nonfat plain or vanilla yogurt
3 Tbsp. safflower oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp + 1 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cup fresh blueberries, rinsed and dried, or frozen unsweetened (do not thaw)

1 - Put rack in center of oven. Preheat to 400 degrees. Coat muffin
cups with cooking spray.

2 - In large bowl mix together egg through sugar. Set a strainer over
the bowl and add flour through salt. Stir and sift the dry ingredients
onto the egg mixture, then stir just to blend. Stir in the berries.

3- Divide the batter among 12 muffin cups. Sprinkle a little granulated
sugar on top. Bake about 20 minutes or until the tops are well risen
and golden brown. Cool muffins in the pan on a wire rack for about 5
minutes, then use a fork to gently pry from pan. Serve warm. This also
works as a coffee cake in an 8" square pan, baked for 25-30 minutes.