Vegan Blueberry-Whole Wheat Muffins

I had a craving for muffins this morning. Also, we are trying to use all of the stuff in our freezer and pantry so that we don't have to move a bunch of food to our new house and we can save some money in the process. This means that we only have Chex cereal (i.e. boring cereal) on hand right now and I just gave the kids the last of the pancakes that I froze so I needed some breakfast foods.

I had never made egg-free blueberry muffins before and I decided that today was the day. I was also feeling very health conscious so I made them a little too healthy tasting but Gemma said they were yummy. And I am going to ignore all comments about her being a biased critic because she has never tasted a horribly unhealthy/delicious Costco blueberry muffin.

I adapted this from the "Rich Muffin"- w/blueberry modification recipe in the Pillsbury cookbook. (Circa 1980, the one that says "New microwave ideas! Recipes & ways to use your revolutionary kitchen helper!" on the cover. Tee hee.) However, I changed so many things about it that you probably wouldn't taste any similarities between the two recipes.

Here is the recipe:

2 cups of white flour

2 cups of whole wheat flour (you can use all white flour if you desire)

1 cup sugar

7 tsp baking powder (6 tsp if you use eggs in the recipe)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp nutmeg

2 Tbsp milled flax seed + 6 Tbsp warm water (or two eggs)

2 1/3 cups soymilk (or enough to make the batter is the right consistency. Flax and whole wheat flour soak up a lot of moisture leaving the dough...well, doughy and needing more milk than your average muffin recipe)

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 cups of blueberries either fresh or frozen (thawed and drained)

Preheat oven to 400°.

Line muffin tins with paper or silicone cups.

In large bowl, mix together the first six ingredients.

In a medium bowl combine the flax mixture (or egg), soymilk, and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry being careful now to over-mix.

Gently fold in the blueberries and spoon the batter into baking cups filling them 3/4 full.

Bake for 20-25 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 24 medium muffins.

Perfect Banana Bread

Every couple of weeks I find myself with a few brownish, overly aromatic bananas on my hands. I used to put them in the freezer which was a terrible idea because I never, ever used them. Really. Never. So I had this freezer full of putrefied bananas that all eventually got thrown away after the appropriate "time period of keeping food you will never eat" elapsed.

Anyhow, I am proud to inform my readers (All two of you. Hi Mom.) that I now make a banana bread with my spotted reject bananas every week or so. It has been so great for breakfast and because I perfected my recipe, it is really easy to make. Yay! 

Before you do anything put your three bananas into a gallon sized ziplock bag and squish them until there are no lumps bigger than the size of a pea. When it's time to add the bananas you just cut the corner off of the bag to get the bananas out without any mess at all.

Note: Banana squishing is a good job to give to children who like to attach themselves to your legs whenever they sense you have any sort of task that you need to accomplish.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter or margarine, at room temperature

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour

3 bananas

Directions:

• Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Grease and flour an 8x5 loaf pan.
• Mash bananas until smooth and set aside.
• In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs.
• In a separate bowl combine flour, cinnamon, and baking soda.
• Gradually add the dry ingredient mixture to the wet ingredients. Do not over mix!
• Add banana by gently stirring it in. Again, don't over mix. It will make your bread tough and it won't rise as well if you do.
• Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted.
• Cool for 10 minutes in pan before transferring to a cooling rack.

You can use whole wheat flour if you want but it may change the texture of the bread. We like to toast slices of banana bread and put butter or cream cheese on it for added un-health.

Cranberry Bog Bars

Last night was my night to bring a dessert to our Life group. I was really excited to have an actual reason to bake something yet I had a serious problem finding the motivation to do the baking project that I had originally planned. We had all been sick for over a week and even though I felt pretty good, I spent yesterday doing very little. Unless you count watching Mulan with Ben as a productive activity.

Anyway, by the time that I was ready to bake, I didn't have the time to do anything epic so I settled for these "Cranberry Bog Bars." This Taste Of Home fall cookbook is proving to be extremely useful! They were so easy to make and they had such an obscene amount of butter in them that they couldn't not be good. I didn't have pecans on hand (let's face it, I never have them around. They set my teeth on edge.) so I subbed them with raw almonds which toasted up really nicely during baking. I am going to have to make these again. Also, they are egg-free.


Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups butter, softened, divided
1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar, divided
3-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats, divided
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 can (14 ounces) whole-berry cranberry sauce
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream 1 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar until light and fluffy. Combine 2-1/2 cups oats and flour. Gradually add to creamed mixture until crumbly. Press into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. Spread with cranberry sauce.
In a microwave-safe bowl, melt remaining butter; stir in the pecans and remaining brown sugar and oats. Sprinkle over cranberry sauce. Bake at 375° for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack. Cut into bars.

Starbucks Gingerbread Recipe!

Today I got the inspiration to find a good gingerbread loaf recipe. Then, I thought to myself "Hey! I wonder if anyone has come up with a recipe for Starbucks' Gingerbread loaf." Well with the help of Google, I quickly found a recipe and to my surprise and extreme delight, it is egg-free! Waa Hoo! It turned out very well and it tasted so yummy.


Starbucks Gingerbread Loaf:

BATTER
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 1/4 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon orange extract, optional
1 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon baking soda

FROSTING
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
2 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 inch square pan.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and salt.
Then set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in orange extract.

Mix baking soda into applesauce and stir into creamed butter mixture.
Add flour mixture. Mix until smooth.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 to 50 minutes or until a
toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.

FROSTING:
Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in vanilla and orange extract. Slowly beat in confectioner’s sugar.

Once the cake has cooled, evenly spread the frosting on top. Decorate with chopped candied orange peel .

Apple Blueberry Crisp

Apple Blueberry Crisp



When I put my apple blueberry crisp in the oven, I was scared. I didn't use a recipe and I was beginning to doubt my cooking skills. Also, this was my first time using agave nectar in the place of sugar. In the end, it turned out pretty well!

Anyway, with a few tweaks, this could be fantastic. Don't get me wrong, it's tasty, but the fruit was a bit tart and I probably could have used another 1/4 cup of agave in the topping. If you make this with regular brown sugar I would say to use a full cup and to cut the flour to 1/2 cup.

Here is an approximate estimate of what went into the crisp:

Filling:
3 Fuji apples sliced thinly
1 1/2 cups of blueberries
3 Tbsp of corn starch
2 Tbsp of lemon juice

Topping:
1 cup of oats
3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup of blue agave nectar (no, it's not actually blue)
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
1 tsp of vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put apples and blueberries into a large baking dish.(I used a round 9" wide 4" deep ceramic crock.) Toss the fruit with the lemon juice and then sprinkle on the corn starch and toss.

In a medium bowl, mix all topping ingredients. Butter should be cold and it should be cut into very small chunks with a pastry blender of knife. Because of the liquid from the agave, this will be like a dense, sticky dough. Use your fingers to drop small amounts of the dough on the fruit until the top is evenly covered in the topping. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Note: Because this was a bit doughy, I pulled it out after 20 min and broke up the topping with a fork and put it back in and it turned out great.




I just couldn't keep myself from posting this one. The steam was so pretty.

Carrot-Pumpkin Muffins.

I baked again today. It was really fun to bake in the morning and have a snack to bring to a playdate. I always bring something "Gemma safe" so today I made Carrot-Pumpkin muffins. Of course, they were eggless and they turned out really well. I have been struggling to bake perfect muffins that had no egg and I think that I finally succeeded! Yee Haw! I found a recipe on a vegan blog for carrot muffins and I messed with it quite a bit adding pumpkin and cutting the amount of sweeteners. My recipe is below.

Also, I should say, I had one of these cut in half with cream cheese and it was heavenly. These could very easily be turned into cupcakes with the addition of cream cheese frosting. Yummy.


Eggless Carrot-Pumpkin Muffins

Dry ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
(I use the O Organics brand because it has the best vanilla flavor)
1/3 cup of unsweetened pumpkin puree
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup of warm water and 1 Tbsp of flax meal mixed together and set aside to congeal in a small dish (this makes the exact consistency of egg and serves as a binder in the muffins)
1/3 cup soy milk (or regular cows milk, we just use soy)
Give or take a bit on the soy milk, I just added it at the end until it was a nice batter consistency

1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots (2 big ones or three regular sized)
1/4 cup raisins
Sugar in the raw for the tops

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit and line muffin tuns with papers.

Sift or stir dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl mix together wet ingredients except for the soy milk, carrots, and raisins. Combine wet and dry ingredients in the large bowl and stir until just mixed (it's important not to over stir) Then add the carrots and raisins. Add the soy milk to get it to the right consistency. It should be a thick batter, not too runny, but also not like a dough.

Fill muffin tins 3/4 full, sprinkle tops with raw sugar crystals, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

This recipe made 24 mini muffins (15 mins to bake) and six regular sized muffins (20 mins to bake.) Cool on a wire rack. Also, do not try to take them out of their wrappers until they are completely cool or they will stick to the muffin liners. Enjoy!

Egg-free recipes

As some of you know, our dear girl is allergic to eggs. It has been interesting trying to feed her and we've pretty much banned foods with eggs in them around the house. My biggest challenge has been baking without the leavening properties of egg. I thought I would post some recipes on my blog so that I can use them and also, in case you ever want to bake for us, you can have some safe recipes. :)



Eggless Blueberry Muffins

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour ( I’ve been trying to use more whole wheat flour so I use 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup regular)
1 cup sugar, plus 2 tsp. more
4 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
3 Tbs. melted butter
1 cup fresh blueberries
Raw sugar crystals for the top

Heat oven to 350. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Combine flour, sugar and baking powder in a medium-size bowl. Stir in milk by hand and melted butter. Fold in blueberries. Fill each cup 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops of muffins with raw sugar. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.


Carrot Cake Loaf

Ingredients
9 large carrots, shredded
2 cups flour
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup raisins; chopped (either golden or dark raisins)
2 large bananas; mashed
1 cup apple sauce
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
Optional: 1 cup of chopped walnuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Grease and flour two loaf pans OR line the pans with "release" aluminum foil
Mix all ingredients thoroughly until well combined.
Bake about 1 hour or until top browns.
If you want to glaze your loaves, just mix 2 cups of powdered sugar with 1-2 TB of milk or cream.
You can make a thinner glaze by adding more liquid.
Pour this over the cooled loaves and spread evenly.