Category: Muffins

Categories
Desserts with Fruit Muffins Sort of Healthy

An Open Letter to The Family (Now With Apples!)

Dear Family People,

Hi! How have you been? Quite well, I hope. Thanks for all of the randoms you’ve been sending my way: the random text messages, random concerns, random pictures of random brown dudes chillin’ with their probably-also- concerned random family members. Thanks! But my dad is still not convinced I have the whole “act like a lady” thing down pat. So I’m going to spend the next several (and by several, I mean “around ninety”) years perfecting that, drinking Jameson, being an ordained minister, playing the drums, going to shows and stalking Glen Hansard, blogging about my frustrations and the baked goods that come out of them, and not committing myself to random dudes.

XOXO Best Friends Forever,

Shibow

P.S. Do you like apples? Well I made apple muffins. How d’ya like them apples?

Why doesn't anyone ever text me pictures of this guy and tell me I should marry him?

Yes, I did have to throw a thinly-veiled Good Will Hunting reference in there, because a. I made apple muffins and b. that is a damn good piece of film. So anyway, it appears that the matchmakers of my family have struck again. And no, to the shock of everyone involved, it was not my mom who conceived of this particular dastardly plan to try to get me hitched. In fact, she was the one who called the evil genius individual who dared send me images of a mystery suitor, to set him straight and basically scare the crap out of him. I’m not going to dwell on this one too much, mostly because I’m not that mad and it’s kind of hilarious to imagine my mom yelling at anyone who isn’t me. Love you Mama. Thanks for sticking up for me!

Let’s talk good news: Saturday I ran the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, which is a 5K race. Oh, and I actually ran the whole thing. Yes, I can hear you saying “Um, duh, moron, that’s what you’re supposed to do,” which is warranted I suppose. But I was a kid who spent far too many days and nights, including one Christmas, laying in a hospital bed with a stupid nebulizer strapped to my small and adorable face (yes it really was both of those things, hush now), so I’m sorta proud of myself. I’ve since decided to train to become a competitive runner, and my next mission is to complete a triathlon.

That is not true, and will likely never be true. I’m going to leave the hard stuff like triathlons to rock stars like my best friend Melinda. She’s a triathlete with two races under her belt! But I did feel a tiny bit healthier post-run, which led me to try to up the good-for-you factor of these Apple Muffins. Yes, I did borrow from Martha, but I kind of only used her recipe as a guideline and changed pretty much everything about it. I also used more apples because my dad dropped by my apartment and for some reason brought a 3-pound bag of Galas with him. Thanks, pops!

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins That Might Actually Be Sort of Good For You

2 medium Gala apples, peeled and chopped into cubes

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of granulated sugar (I used turbinado)

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

big pinch of salt

bigger pinch of cinnamon

1 large egg

1 egg white

1 cup low-fat buttermilk (I used 1 cup of skim milk with a tablespoon of vinegar mixed in; let sit for a couple of minutes and you’ve got a buttermilk substitute)

1/4 cup of butter

1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce

So I’d heard from various sources that applesauce can work as a stand-in for butter, but only in small doses. I’ve been experimenting in my lab for weeks now, and decided it was time to really commit to trying this. What better recipe than one already involving apples, right? And anyway, the sauce cuts down on the fat and cholesterol contents, so yay!

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda. Sift together, then toss the apples in this mixture. In a separate bowl, whisk together your egg, egg white, buttermilk, butter and applesauce. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and combine just until completely mixed. Don’t go crazy now– if you mix too much you’ll basically beat the air out of the batter and your muffins will come out heavy and lumpy. And then I will laugh at you. Spoon the batter evenly into your muffin pan, and sprinkle the tops with a bit of brown sugar if you please (I myself did please).

Toss into the oven for 16 to 18 minutes, until the tops look browned. Let them cool for a few minutes in the pan before turning them out onto a plate to cool completely. Then go crazy and eat like five of them. That’s totally healthy.

I decided not to take yet another photo of me holding up the baked good in question, mostly because I am starting to get a little self-conscious about my wonky thumb. I’ll tell you all about it later. Maybe that story will ward off all of these weirdos the family’s been trying to set me up with. Anyhoo, I’m pleasantly surprised by these muffins. They’re not overly sweet, but they’re also soft and pillow-y, especially when warm. With a low fat and high fiber content mixture, I don’t really feel too badly about eating them. But I never really feel too badly about eating anything, so I guess I’m not an accurate litmus test. Let’s just leave it at this: they’re yummy, they’re not at all bad for you, even my parents liked them, and no I am not marrying your random friend/cousin/cousin’s friend. Bye!

Categories
Muffins

It’s Mama’s Day!

My mom is kind of a rock star. This isn’t something I’ve ever really thought about, mostly because she and I are so completely different. And not different in the “opposites attract” way. It’s more like different in the she’s-a-member-of-the-Rosary-Society-and-I-am-the-Devil-Incarnate way. Still, given that I am in the middle of a quarter-life crisis (Look! It’s for reals!), I’ve been getting mad nostalgic and existential up in this crib.

Mom left her home in India in her teens to attend nursing school in Heidelberg, Germany. The woman did not speak a lick of German, or English, or anything but Malayalam, and she was all alone. Within six months, she was fluent in the Deutsch and at the top of her class. By the time she was my age, she was already married to my dad and was an established registered nurse. Pretty amazing, right?

As I said, I really don’t think about how difficult her teens and twenties must have been, mostly because I am probably very self-centered and am trying to figure my own $&#% out.

Grandma, Mama, Baby Sad Shibow

This is a photo taken at my baptism in Kerala, India. What a little chubster I was, right? Mom had to lug me around quite a bit. She says that I was the little cherub (she uses a different word, whatever) who caused her carpal-tunnel syndrome. Haters gonna hate. Anyway, both my mom and late grandma are/were beautiful ladies. Mama, you might be the saint to my sinner, but I love you and owe you more than muffins. But you really like muffins so I made you some.

I’d made a variation on these last year, and remembered that Mom really dug them. They’re honey and goat cheese-filled fig muffins. These have a pretty decent amount of fiber in them, and are lower in sugar than many other muffins, so they’d be perfect for a breakfast treat now and then. I switched everything up a bit this time around. Here’s what you’ll need for my version:

Whole Wheat Honey and Cheese-Filled Raisin Muffins

3/4 cup of Neufchatel cheese

2 tablespoons of honey

1 teaspoon of lemon zest

1 1/4 teaspoons of vanilla extract, divided

2 cups of whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 large eggs

1 large egg white

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of low-fat or non-fat buttermilk (or one cup of skim milk with a tablespoon of vinegar added; let sit for 5 minutes)

1/3 cup of vegetable oil

1 1/4 cup of raisins

3 tablespoons of brown sugar (for sprinkling)

Preheat the oven to 425°F and grease a 12-cup muffin tin. In a small bowl, combine the cheese, honey, zest and 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a third bowl, beat your eggs and egg white , then whisk in the sugar and remaining vanilla. Add in the buttermilk and oil, then add the entire mixture to the flour mix. Finally, fold in your raisins.

Spoon half of the mixture into each muffin cup. Drop about a teaspoon of your cheese mixture into the center of each cup, then cover each cup with your remaining batter. Sprinkle the tops with brown sugar if you so please.

Batter batter batter sa-wing batter batter... (I am five)

Pop these into the oven for 13 to 15 minutes, until the tops are slightly browned and spring back when touched. Want to know how I figured out mine were done? They sort of exploded. See?

Note the cream cheese volcanoes atop several of these

We all make mistakes. When those mistakes involve honeyed cheese oozing out of otherwise-perfect muffins, I will take them. Hopefully Mama will too. Actually, she doesn’t have a choice. Deal with it, lady.

Happy Babymomma Day, Momma. Thanks for carrying my fat behind around for all those years.

Categories
Classic Favorites Muffins

Sad Shibow and the Quarter-Life Crisis Muffins (Now With Bananas!)

Yup. Eyeore. Were going there, guys.

You guys! Saturday morning I was brushing my teeth and found what I am desperately trying to convince myself was a blond hair sticking out of my scalp. I am brown. I have black hair. It’s black. It’s just black, and it doesn’t turn any other colors because I am not a mood ring. And yet…this.

Anyway, I had a weird weekend. Saturday was Record Store Day, which I like to check out despite the fact that I am, sadly, record player-less. I met up with a fellow vinyl enthusiast who owns an umbrella with a flashlight on the handle and who also has what is easily the most hooked-up entertainment system I have ever seen. I was florescent-green with envy. I have met my nemesis, and he carries a flashlight umbrella. Ella. Ella… oh also, my umbrella gave out pretty quickly in this weekend’s monsoon (I suppose since I cannot go to India, India has decided to come to me), which only brought me further down.

In all seriousness, I can’t really pinpoint why I got the blues, but it looks like it’s hit: the quarter-life crisis.

I am a nerd. Always and ever shall be. I’m used to blueprints, instructions and steps. Cramming + writing + timidly raising my hand once in a while + homeworking + stressin’ like whoa= diploma and honors and stuff (nerd!). It’s gotten me through high school, college, and graduate school, and I’m darn proud. But now…now what? There aren’t any more guarantees. There aren’t any more sure things. There are only muffins.

That was a poor segue. Still, this is a baking blog, so, you know…go with it. I’d promised my cousin Jenny, who is pregnant with her second child (Hi Jen! Yay!), something banana-and-chocolate-chippy. A couple of days post-freakout, I walked into the kitchen, breathed in the scent of hella-ripe bananas, and got cookin’. I’m kind of picky when it comes to recipes, and since I was in sort of a mood, I decided to go with a recipe I’ve trusted for years (also the very first entry in my recipe book), and build upon it. Here’s what I say you need, which means here is what you need:

4 very ripe mashed bananas

3/4 cup of brown sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon of unsweetened applesauce

1 tablespoon of softened butter or vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

3/4 cup of mini chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Angrily sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar. Once it’s blended, mix in the eggs one at a time, then throw in your applesauce, butter or oil and bananas. Fold in the mini chips, but try not to overmix. You want the mixture to be mushy and lumpy. Sounds attractive, right?

FYI, if youre in more of a bread mood, switch to a 9x5 jelly roll pan

Leave them in for 12-15 minutes. Mine were done in exactly 13 minutes, because I am Eyeore and the number most New York City buildings try to avoid seems to visit me pretty often. Uhh… anyway, take them out when the tops are slightly browned and a toothpick inserted comes out just a bit moist.

I kept a couple of these behind, just to test them/cheer me up. Here’s what the inside looked like before I devoured it.

Om nom nom.

Who am I kidding? Just looking at this picture makes me feel better. I’m going to go listen to some Phoenix and eat another muffin. Deuces, homies.

Categories
Muffins

Lemon Ricotta Muffins…Because I Never Use Ricotta

Every few weeks I convince myself that it’s time to put my big girl pants on and cook myself some actual meals. I make a pretty mean turkey burger, and have thrown some grade-A dinner parties, if I do say so myself…and I do. But I am a creature of habit, and unless I’m dining out, I am happy to eat the same five things every week, as long as one of those things involves peanut butter and another involves chocolate. So I’m not really sure why I bought a massive tub of ricotta cheese. I think I was intending to whip up a pasta dish of some variety, but I live alone and therefore cook for a party of one, and this particular eater is not a huge fan of the ricotta in the pasta. I’m pretty sure it was on sale and I am aspiring to be on Extreme Couponing. Man those ladies are clever.

So, the ricotta was due to meet its maker soon. Wait…that doesn’t really apply I guess, because the ricotta was going to expire and hit the trash can, not meet the cow from whence it came. Whatever…I just needed to use it because I hate wasting things. While browsing through some cookbooks on my shelf, I found a recipe for Lemon Ricotta Muffins in a copy of Good Housekeeping Great Baking: 600 Recipes for Cakes, Cookies, Breads, Pies and Pastries. 600! You will totally be seeing more recipes from this book. Anyway, I happened to have every ingredient needed at my disposal, and, if you’re a fan of ricotta (or cottage, which works as a nice sub), you probably do too.

I also tweaked this recipe just a bit, because I am stubborn/cool like that.

Here’s the original recipe, with my humble suggestions in parentheses. You’ll end up with a dozen delicious muffins.

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of granulated sugar (I used 1/4 cup of brown sugar and 1/4 cup of granulated white because the brown sugar has a richer taste to it), plus 2 tablespoons of brown or white sugar for sprinkling

2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of salt

1 cup of ricotta cheese (mine was part-skim)

1/3 cup of milk

6 tablespoons of melted butter (I melted it in the microwave in 15-second increments)

2 eggs (I used 1 whole egg and 1 egg white)

2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest

Preheat your oven to 400°F and grease your muffin tin. That is not a euphemism. Really, grease the tin.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together ricotta, milk, melted butter, eggs and lemon peel. Now, I know the recipe says to use two teaspoons of the zest, but as I have mentioned before, I am messy and have no idea how to measure this out properly without wasting zest. I went a little bit nuts and probably added more, which turned out to be a really great thing. I say zest at your leisure. My lemon ended up with a couple of bald spots.

Mid-zesting. It has a fade! I probably zested about half of this one.

Now, make a well in the middle of your dry mixture, and pour in your ricotta mix. It’s not going to be a pretty, perfect well, so don’t fret. Stir the mixtures together just until all of the flour has been moistened. You should end up with something that looks a little lumpy and smells very lemon-y. Yum.

My lovely lemon lumps. Inappropriate! Please don't flag this post.

Divide the mixture evenly among the cups of your muffin tin. Sprinkle your remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar (I used brown)  over the cups and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the muffins are golden brown. Remove them from the pan as soon as you’re able to without inflicting third-degree burns on yourself. I mean, these are good, but nothing’s worth a trip to the burn unit. Really though, these should be served warm. If you’re not going to eat them right away, microwave them before serving. Also, you can freeze them for your inevitable and eventual muffin craving.

Your (well, my, unless you feel like coming over) finished product.

In my humble opinion, these were outstanding, and pretty filling. To make them even more filling and up the fiber content, you could replace half of the all-purpose flour with whole-wheat flour. See, I care about your health! You’re welcome.