Muffin Monday-- Pumpkin Spice Muffin recipe for infants

It's pumpkin week!

We made our annual pilgramage to my favorite pumpkin patch recently, and now I've got to use up the 2 quarts or so of pumpkin puree I have in the freezer to make room for this year's crop (it's a disease, I know...now leave me alone).  Well, not pumpkins, actually-- I find most pumpkins to be flavorless, whether from a can or from a fresh pie pumpkin. I'm a winter squash fanatic-- the big blue-grey Hubbard being my squash of choice.  The pulp of a Hubbard is dry and so sweet I can eat it freshly roasted with no seasoning whatsoever. Delicious. And it makes any recipe you use it in just that much more delicious, too.  (Of course, to get the dadgum thing open, you have to toss it off the front stoop and bust it open on the sidewalk. It's the safest way. Trust me.) (Yes, I said "dadgum". What of it?)

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, muffins. This is based on my favorite, favorite pumpkin bread recipe-- I've reduced it in size to make a manageable quantity of muffins, added in whole wheat pastry flour for a bit of nutrition and a tender crumb, reduced the sugar dramatically, left out the salt.  It's still delicious, but much less like a cupcake than the original recipe was. (Though if cupcakes are what you're wanting, you could hardly do better than trying the original recipe).

Awesomely autumnal muffin pan ("cakelet" pan, to be precise) thanks to Mae's Grammy, who always keeps us eating in style.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

1/2 c. sugar
1 c. oil
3 eggs
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 c. All Purpose flour
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease up your mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs, and pumpkin. In a smaller bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined, and fold in the walnuts if you're using them.  Fill your muffin tins 3/4 full, and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Muffin Monday-- Recipe for Apple-Peanut Butter Muffins

My craving for satisfying apple muffins was left unrequited with last week's muffin, so I decided to have another go this week.  I've got a new recipe for you, with a bit of a twist-- peanut butter! Apples and peanut butter being one of my go-to snacks throughout the fall and winter.  My appreciation for the combo has been enhanced by my finally buying-- and devouring in record time-- natural peanut butter. It actually tastes like peanuts! Who knew?

We introduced peanut butter to Mae several weeks ago, and she appears to take it just fine-- no allergies here, thank goodness.  So this muffin is a good way for her to enjoy this flavor combo, too (since I'm still pretty nervous about chunks of raw apple).

The recipe is based on these muffins, with a few changes to make up for the fact that I omitted most (but not all) of the sugar.  I added the apples, spices, and the peanut butter. The result is light, fluffy, and moist, which is exactly what I was going for. Win! This time I also remembered to add salt to the second half of the batter for some adult-friendly muffins. The salt-free ones were not bad, but they still benefitted some from the inclusion of salt. Just take care not to overstir the batter when you add the it, or the muffins will end up with the texture of little rubber lumps.

Apple-Peanut Butter Muffins

1 c. AP flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 c. canola oil
1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. sour cream
1 egg 1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1 c. cinnamon stewed apples, peeled and lightly mashed
natural peanut butter (no sugar or salt added)

Preheat your oven to 350, and prep your mini-muffin tins.
In a large bowl, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, milk, sour cream, egg, and vanilla. Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then fold in the mashed apples.

Fill your muffin tins, then with a fingertip dipped in flour to prevent sticking, make little indentations in the center of each proto-muffin.  Add a 1/2 tsp or so dollop of the peanut butter.  (If that's too fussy, just spread peanut butter on 'em when it's time to eat 'em. That'll work, too.)

Bake for 12-15 minutes each. Makes 3 dozen mini-muffins.

Muffin Monday-- "Hello, My Name is ______" Muffins recipe

Just realized I can use Helvetica here. Awesome!

Anyhow, we're traveling, visiting Mae's Grammy and Grandpa, so no pictures this time. 

Bit of a muffin fail, too. Somewhat.  I have this basic, utterly plain muffin recipe, to which you add stuff of your choosing to render them yummy. The basic recipe was a success, but my particular variation this time did not exactly open up new vistas of muffiny goodness. I have an idea of what went wrong. I'll go into that below, but here's the fill-in-the-blank muffin recipe:

"Hello, My Name Is _____" Muffins

2 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1/4 c. melted butter
3/4 c. milk
1/2 tsp salt (optional)

Preheat your oven to 375. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour and baking powder. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, butter. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, fold in your additional custom ingredients (see below), and bake for 12-15 minutes.

I used 1/2 c. whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour. To this, I added: 1 c. oats, 1/3 c. apple butter, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and 1 diced apple. I stirred the oats and spices into the flour mixture, and the apple butter into the egg/milk mixture. Added the diced apple at the end. The oats were a success, and the apple chunks were nice, but you couldn't really taste the apple butter or spices. The result was a bit bland. More than a bit. Quite. Quite bland. Very, I would go so far as to say. I should have added at least a half teaspoon of the spices, probably more. Plus, this really needs salt. I should have baked Mae's dozen and then folded in some salt to make the remainder adult-friendly. But I didn't, and they taste flat. Salted butter helps, but does not redeem. 

The muffin substrate was good, though, texturally speaking, and I'll definitely be having another go at these. You can stir in cheese, herbs, dried fruit, fresh fruit, use a mixture of flours and grains, etc. etc. Lots of ways to change these up.

Mae thought it was pretty good, even if I was not impressed with my additions. Meanwhile, my quest for perfect apple muffins continues. Stay tuned.

Muffin Monday: Browned butter orange oat muffins with banana-orange cream-cheese filling

This past spring, I finally discovered the joy that is browned butter when I made Mae's dad a batch of Nigella Lawson's burnt butter cupcakes for his birthday. I vowed that I would make a batch of browned butter to keep in a vat in the fridge and use in everything. I haven't actually done that (yet), and it's probably for the best. But how could I resist working it into a muffin? These are toasty goodness- the browned butter, toasted oatmeal, and toasted pecans in the filling. Enjoy!

Banana-orange cream cheese filling/spread

2 small ripe bananas
1/2 c. orange juice
2 whole cloves
4 oz. cream cheese, cut into pieces
1/4 c. finely chopped toasted pecans (optional)

Chop or break the bananas into a few large chunks and put them together with the orange juice into a small skillet. Add the cloves. Turn up heat to medium high. As the bananas soften with cooking, mush them up, and cook until the mixture is reduced and thickened. Turn off the heat, remove the cloves, and stir in the cream cheese, then the pecans. Remove from heat and let cool. This can be made a day or two in advance.  It actually makes about twice as much as you need for the muffins, but it's so good you'll want extra (for spreading on the muffins, or toast, or pancakes, or....).

Browned butter orange oat muffins

1 stick butter
1 c. buttermilk
1 egg
finely grated zest of 1 orange
1 c. rolled oats
1 c. All Purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
 1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease up your mini-muffin tins.

First, brown your butter. In a small pan (8 inches wide and at least an inch deep, because it'll foam a lot), melt the butter over medium heat. Let it continue to heat-- it'll foam at first, then gradually begin to darken. Let it go until it's so dark you think, "Oh no, it's ruined!", then carefully strain it into a heatproof receptacle (pyrex is good). I assure you that unless it actually bursts into flames, you won't have ruined it (unless you forget to strain it, in which case you'll have nasty burnt sludge in your muffins, and you don't want that). Let it cool.  There won't be quite a 1/2 cup anymore, but that's fine.

In a small bowl, whisk together the cooled butter, the buttermilk, egg, and orange zest.

Next, toast your oats.  Go ahead and use the same pan you browned the butter in (after it's cooled a bit so you don't instantly burn your oats). Heat them over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they're beginning to turn golden. Take them off the heat and let them cool for a few minutes, then whisk them into the liquid mixture.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.  Fill the muffin tins halfway; add a 1/2 tsp of the filling mixture in the center of the batter, then cover with a little more of the batter. Bake 10-12 minutes. (If you don't want to be bothered with filling them, you can spread it on just like frosting on a cupcake. That would be stylish!)

Muffin Monday

Ok, I admit this one isn't really for the babies, but I made it for a potluck and am so proud of myself, I have to share.  I couldn't decide whether to make my tomato, basil, and sweet corn pasta salad, or cupcakes. So I decided to compromise.  I give you...[drumroll]... basil sweet corn mini-muffins with tomato-chevre 'frosting'!  All the cute of a mini cupcake, but with a flavorful little punch of savory.

It could be adapted for babies easily enough-- leave out most of the salt, sugar, and possibly the whole corn (which, um, tends to pass right on through little digestive systems), and it would be fine. Mind you, if you use 1 tsp of salt in the whole thing, that's 2325 mg of sodium (according to NutritionData.com), but the recipe makes 54 mini-muffins, so only about 43mg per muffin (before adding the cheese in). Just sayin'.

Basil sweet corn muffins

1 stick butter, chilled
1 3/4 c. cornmeal
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 c. sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 c. buttermilk
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. frozen corn, thawed
1/2 c. finely chopped basil

Preheat your oven to 400, and grease up some mini-muffin tins.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. With a pastry blender or a knife, work in the butter until it's all cut into pea-sized bits or smaller. then go at it with your hands and work it in some more.  In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs and buttermilk.  Stir these into the dry ingredients, then stir in the corn and basil.  Fill your muffin tins and bake about 10 minutes, until a knife stuck in one comes out clean.  Turn them out on a rack and let them cool.  Makes 4 1/2 dozen.

Tomato-Chevre 'frosting'

This is a bit more approximate, and I didn't take close measurements when I was making it.  So start with small amounts of the spices and work your way up to the amount you think tastes good.

12 oz. goat cheese (Capriole Farms chevre if you can get it!)
12 oz. cream cheese
tomato paste-- the better part of one of those little cans, maybe 6 Tbs total
~1 1/2 tsp or so of powdered garlic
~1 1/2 tsp sun dried tomato powder
~1/2 tsp. white pepper
salt to taste
~ 1/4 c. heavy cream

Let the cheese come to room temperature, mash it up good in a medium bowl. With vigor and enthusiasm, mix in your spices and tomato paste. Gradually stir in the cream. With a hand mixer, beat the mixture on high until light and fluffy, adding more cream to lighten as necessary. The texture should be light and fluffy and easily spreadable.  Pipe it onto the corn muffins and garnish with toasted pine nuts or a sprig of basil.

I promise my muffin for next week won't involve basil or garlic.

Muffin Monday-- Pesto Muffins-- Savory muffin recipe for infants

Deconstructed pesto, in muffin form.  These are nice and moist on the inside, slightly crisp on the outside.  If you happen to have some roasted garlic (you know, the thing where you wrap a head of garlic in foil and roast it in the oven till it's caramelized and spreadable), that would be the thing to put on them, in my opinion.

Mae's dad took some of these in to distribute to his workplace (because if I make 3 dozen muffins every week for Muffin Monday and we don't give some away, we'll soon have no room left for anything else in the freezer). He was wearing Mae in the BabyBjorn, and when he opened the container she somehow managed to scoop up a muffin, took a bite out of it, and then reached down with the other hand and snagged another one. I am not making that up. She liked the bran muffins fine, but she loves these.

Pesto Muffins

3/4 c. spelt flour

1 1/2 c. All Purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3 eggs

3/4 c. olive oil

3/4 c. whole milk

4 large cloves garlic, minced

1/2 c. basil, minced

3/4 c. grated parmesan cheese

1/2 c. pine nuts, toasted for about 5 minutes in a 350 degree oven and then chopped

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your mini-muffin (fairy cake) pan with a quick greasing or spraying of Pam.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flours and baking powder. In another bowl, lightly beat your eggs, then whisk in the olive oil and milk. Stir the liquids into the dry ingredients until just combined, then fold in the garlic, pine nuts, cheese, and basil. Fill your mini-muffin tins about 3/4 full, and bake for 12-15 minutes. Makes 3 dozen.

Muffin Monday-- bran muffin recipe for baby-led weaning

Welcome to Muffin Monday! I've found that the muffin texture is perfect for Mae-- toast or bread sometimes gets gummy and makes a big wad that can cause gagging, but muffins break apart nicely. Unfortunately, most muffin recipes are on the sugary side. That's ok. I can fix that. First up, whole wheat bran muffins. These feature 100% whole wheat and bran, with molasses for sweetness (and a little extra iron!). I've kept them plain, as I'm not quite sure Mae is ready for dried fruit, but in a couple months I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes. These are delicious with a little apple butter on them. I'll be sneaking a few for myself. Probably more than a few, actually, since the recipe made about 4 dozen. Luckily they freeze just fine.

Whole Wheat Bran Muffins

1 1/2 c. wheat bran

2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbs cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. molasses (I used half sorghum and half blackstrap)

1 egg

1/4 c. vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350, grease a mini-muffin pan. Whisk together the first 6 ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, oil, and molasses. Pour the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients and stir 'em up until just combined. (No huge lumps, but don't overbeat them either). Fill the cups of the mini muffin pan, bake for about 12 minutes, or until a knife stuck in one comes out without batter on it.