Fresh from the oven, with almond butter
Every now and then, I get the urge to make muffins. I always try to make them healthy, because if I'm going to be baking something sweet and cakey with lots of white flour, why not just make a cake? Tonight I finally hit on a recipe I think is worth repeating.
I was stirring the wet ingredients into the dry and it came to my mind that someday I will be one of those moms--the kind that sends bran muffins and homemade granola to school in reusable lunch bags, the kind that cheerfully suggests fruit! or carrot sticks! or how about some nuts! As a response to a request for a snack, the kind that thinks even juice is mostly junk food (with some wiggle room for fresh-squeezed, or calcium-fortified OJ.) But, also the kind who will serve tooth-achingly sweet cakes piled high with creamy frosting on birthdays, or indulge in the occasional dinner of nachos smothered in salsa and guacamole, or buy that freakishly yellow popcorn at the movies once in a while.
And I will be the kind who bakes, because there really is something special about baking, and those associations between a hot sweet baked good right out of the oven and comfort and love are just never lost.
These muffins are full of crazy hippie ingredients almost to a one, and somehow turned out just so awesome. Very slightly sweet, with a little crunch, and an earthy flavor from the molasses and maple syrup. Most measurements are approximate, so if you decide to make these, play with them all you want--as long as you've got your leaveners and approximately the right amount of dry and wet ingredients, you'll be fine. Feel free to use wheat flours instead of spelt. Add nuts or change out the blueberries for another fruit. Use oat bran or a combination of oat bran and wheat bran instead of the seven grain cereal. Use applesauce instead of mashed banana. Whatever! The batter should be thick and gloppy, much thicker than your average muffin batter, but not so thick that it would be shapeable, like dough.
Hippie Muffins (makes 12)
Dry mix:
¾ cup white spelt flour
¾ cup whole spelt flour
1 and ½ cups seven grain cereal (I used Arrowhead Mills wheat-free)
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
Wet mix:
2 bananas, mashed
2 tablespoons flaxseeds, ground, mixed with
½ cup boiling water and allowed to stand 5 minutes
2 tablespoons canola or coconut oil
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
½ to ¾ cup milk (I used unsweetened almond milk, and I just poured from the carton when the muffin mix looked too dry at the end, so try to just use your own judgment)
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 bag frozen blueberries, thawed for a little while
1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Line a muffin tin with liners, or grease the tin well.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix dry ingredients together.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix wet ingredients until well-combined.
4. Make a well in the dry mix and pour in the wet mix. Mix until just combined.
5. Fold in blueberries.
6. Bake 20 minutes or until they pass the toothpick test. Let cool 5 minutes or so before removing from tin. Enjoy! If you have leftovers, store in an airtight container.
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