The Alchemist

The Alchemist  is not just Paulo Coelho's celebrated novel. It's also a perfect noun to describe yours truly in the kitchen baking muffins. During the last two batches, I was basically experimenting with ingredients, without much guidance, pretty much flying by the seat of my pants...

Yes, muffins again. I recently made a commitment to rid the fridge and the frizer of a few jars that have been there since what seems like the dawn of time. One of these jars was pumpkin, another - apple sauce. I decided to make Carrot Pumpkin Spelt Muffins from Blogging Over Hyme again, but upon closer look discovered that the pumpkin was toast - there was a cheerful blob of green goo growing on it. As by that point, I had already premixed the dry ingredients (duh!), I had to continue baking something. I mixed the ingredients together without any recipes, crossed fingers and hoped for the best. This is how Rustic Zucchini & Walnut Muffins were born.

Not too sweet, packing ridiculously healthy components such as olive oil, bran and spelt flour, I really liked them. The texture is moist and springy, just as it's supposed to be. They reminded me of the Zucchini Walnut Muffin I had at the Wild Oat once, but these are far less oily.

RUSTIC ZUCCHINI WALNUT MUFFINS
makes 12 medium-large

• 3/4 cups spelt flour
• 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 2/3 cup bran
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 heaped tsp cinammon + 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cups sugar (150g)
• 1/2 cup toasted walnuts (60 g)
• 1/4 cups raisins (45g)
• 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 eggs
• 4 tbs + 1 tsp olive oil (70 ml)
• 1 medium size zucchini, shredded (about 200g)

Toast walnuts on the stove top in a small frying pan; set aside. Pour boiling water over raisins, let stand for a minute, drain well, set aside.

Mix all dry ingredients, including sugar in a large bowl. In another bowl, beat eggs with a fork, whisk in apple sauce, oil and vanilla. Pour wet into dry and combine until smooth. Fold in shredded zucchini, raisins and walnuts. Save a handful of walnuts for decoration. Spoon batter into paper-lined muffin cups. If regular-sized, they will be pretty much full.

Bake at 375C for about 30-35 minutes.Take out when the tops feel firm to the touch and a toothpick comes out clean.

Easy-peasy. I actually ended up with 13 muffins. One was placed into the little red baking dish.

They smell great when baking. My muffin army has lined up for the parade.

You may be tempted to wolf one down straight out of the oven. Where's my cold almond milk?

Sweet breakfast packages of goodness

The word "rustic" came to mind when I tasted them. There's just a tiny tinge of olive oil (I used extra virgin) but as far as I'm concerned, it's a good thing.

Nutrition: about 220 cal/muffin if you make a dozen and about 200 if you end up with 13.

***
Another creation from a week ago was also rather experimental. I liked the outcome a lot, though next time, I'll consider using even less sugar in the batter but firmer jam instead of reduced-sugar jelly.

BANANA OAT FLAX MUFFINS WITH FRUIT JAM
makes 12 medium-small muffins

• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 heaped tbs flax seeds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp each cinammon and ginger
• 1/2 cups sugar or less
• 1 ripe medium-sized banana, mashed
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup low-fat plain youghurt + 1/4 cup milk
• about 12 tsp of your favorite fruit jam

The procedure is strangely familiar. Hehehe.

Mix dry components in one large bowl. Beat the egg in another, add mashed banana, oil, vanilla, youghurt and milk, whisk until the mixture is smooth and homogenous. Combine wet and dry. Divide batter in two unequal halves - you need slightly more batter to cover the jam blobs, as muffins' tops are larger than their bottoms, right?

Muffins are  like inverted cones with tops cut off. Apparently, this shape is called "frustrum of cone".

Wooo, this is way too complicated for my ability in geometry. A "frustrum"? Are you kidding me? I obviously had to look it up on Google :)

Back to muffins. Distribute the smaller half of the batter equally between 12 paper-lined muffin tins. Then, place about 1/2-1 spoon of jam in each. Cover with remaining batter and sprinkle with flax seeds

Here is the procedure visually. I used PC Twice the Fruit Strawberry Rhubarb spread.

Bake at 350F for about 25 min.

I suspect I used too much jam, as the muffin tops sank slightly after cooling.

Despite this slight puzzle (which I suspect would be corrected with jam of higher density), these were gooood.

Nutrition: about 180 cal each

Sweet dreams from Muffin Central!