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Many years ago, aided by my Tightwad Gazette, I set out to become a muffin maker. I failed. Now, I am not a lousy cook. In fact, baking is one of the things I do best. But for whatever reason, my muffins came out lousy. The taste wasn't so bad, but the texture was all wrong - and that really turned me off muffin making. I just couldn't get the store-bought muffin texture, all crumbly and soft. I reverted to the mixes.
Inspired by this forum (and by flash's muffin-baking binges), and repelled by the cost of store-bought muffins, I decided to stick my toe back into the muffin-baking waters. I started out easy - by making my banana bread recipe and putting it into muffin tins. Easy enough. Came out fine. So I was ready to dive a little deeper. Next, I found a highly rated zucchini spice muffin recipe on recipezaar.com (my favorite site for recipes) and tried it. Delicious. So now I had two successful recipes under my belt. It was time to be brave. I took the zucchini recipe and changed it. Yup, altered it due to my tastes and what I had on hand. I'm not talking adding raisins or anything - I made a completely different recipe. And it was delicious. Yeah! Now I'm ready to take on the world!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, if there are any other aspiring muffinistas out there, here's the original recipe. After the recipe, I listed what I changed tonight.
Zucchini Spice Muffins (recipezaar #67377, to give credit where credit is due)
3 eggs
1/2 c. oil
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. sour cream
1 1/2 c. shredded zucchini
Mix together (do not overmix)
Add in:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves
Stir in:
1 c. dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, etc)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
Bake 350 for 20 minutes. The original recipe said this makes 6 large muffins, but I made 6 large and 4 or 5 more small ones.
Now for my Carrot-Coconut-Pineapple recipe:
Decrease sugar by a little (I don't measure) due to pineapple
Used carrots instead of zucchini (I used 2 cups because that's how many carrots I wanted to use up)
Added about 1/2 c. crushed pineapple with juice
Threw in a handful of coconut
Left out cloves and decreased the cinnamon to 1/2 t.
Left out the dried fruit.
And it worked! I can't wait to try another recipe. This is great for using up things on hand. In my case, I had a past-the-date carton of sour cream (hey, it wasn't green yet), a five pound bag of carrots getting really old in my fridge, the remnants of a can of crushed pineapple that had been sitting around for nearly a week, and part of a bag of coconut leftover from making Christmas cookies (the only time I use it).
Anyway, I am also writing this post to hear some of the recipes/ideas other people use, since I want to make this a weekly (or more) event. Can you tell how excited I am about this new adventure??
Inspired by this forum (and by flash's muffin-baking binges), and repelled by the cost of store-bought muffins, I decided to stick my toe back into the muffin-baking waters. I started out easy - by making my banana bread recipe and putting it into muffin tins. Easy enough. Came out fine. So I was ready to dive a little deeper. Next, I found a highly rated zucchini spice muffin recipe on recipezaar.com (my favorite site for recipes) and tried it. Delicious. So now I had two successful recipes under my belt. It was time to be brave. I took the zucchini recipe and changed it. Yup, altered it due to my tastes and what I had on hand. I'm not talking adding raisins or anything - I made a completely different recipe. And it was delicious. Yeah! Now I'm ready to take on the world!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, if there are any other aspiring muffinistas out there, here's the original recipe. After the recipe, I listed what I changed tonight.
Zucchini Spice Muffins (recipezaar #67377, to give credit where credit is due)
3 eggs
1/2 c. oil
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. sour cream
1 1/2 c. shredded zucchini
Mix together (do not overmix)
Add in:
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cloves
Stir in:
1 c. dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, etc)
1/2 c. chopped walnuts
Bake 350 for 20 minutes. The original recipe said this makes 6 large muffins, but I made 6 large and 4 or 5 more small ones.
Now for my Carrot-Coconut-Pineapple recipe:
Decrease sugar by a little (I don't measure) due to pineapple
Used carrots instead of zucchini (I used 2 cups because that's how many carrots I wanted to use up)
Added about 1/2 c. crushed pineapple with juice
Threw in a handful of coconut
Left out cloves and decreased the cinnamon to 1/2 t.
Left out the dried fruit.
And it worked! I can't wait to try another recipe. This is great for using up things on hand. In my case, I had a past-the-date carton of sour cream (hey, it wasn't green yet), a five pound bag of carrots getting really old in my fridge, the remnants of a can of crushed pineapple that had been sitting around for nearly a week, and part of a bag of coconut leftover from making Christmas cookies (the only time I use it).
Anyway, I am also writing this post to hear some of the recipes/ideas other people use, since I want to make this a weekly (or more) event. Can you tell how excited I am about this new adventure??
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