Petite BABS Muffins

Intros and Inspirations

These banana-apple-blueberry-strawberry muffins are so fruity they belong in a basket.

With all the touring and new-website making there has not been a lot of time for documenting food creations. Know that food has been created, enjoyed, eaten, and stored as body fat -- all undocumented except for the latter.

Rob's a sucker for a good muffin, and after several hints (“Mmmmuffins!” or the classic, “I love muffins!”) I gave in. In the past, I might have used Agave nectar to sweeten these bad'ns, but though they are brave little muffins, they cannot be mingled with the devil himself.

History of Dish

Muffins can be traced back to 10^th century England, but the American variety popular today arrived later, adding the moulds since the batter mixture was unable to stand alone like dough. Weak!

Potash was used to make them rise until baking powder was created around 1857. Muffins were promoted as healthier than doughnuts (kind of like cigarettes are better than crack?) but to ensure long shelf-life, additional fats and sugars were added and we were back to square one, or cupcake impersonations.

Yield and Pre-heat

Preheat the oven to 350 (or 375 if your oven runs colder than mine).

Makes 10 smaller muffins, or 8 larger.

Ingredients

Wet:

• ½ apple, shredded with grater

• 1 cup soy milk

• 1 t apple cider vinegar

• 1 crushed banana

• ¼ cup blue berries

• ¼ cup chopped strawberries

• ¼ cup canola oil

• 1 t vanilla

Dry:

• 1 ¼ cup flour (whole wheat pastry or all purpose)

• 2 T ground flaxseed

• ½ cup powdered sugar

• 1 t cinnamon

• ½ t nutmeg

• 2 t baking powder

• ½ t salt

Mixing/Blending

Mix the wet ingredients in one bowl, the dry in another. Fold the dry into the wet, stirring slowly with a wooden spoon, just enough to mix, lumps are OK. Overstirring causes flat, dense, depressed muffins. Nobody wants that.

Baking

Scoop batter into cups – lined or not. Using paper cups will not give you a crust on the outside, so choose according to preference.

Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes.

Eating

Let cool first. Do I need to say this?

Optional:

Add walnuts to make them BAWBS.

Conclusion

Rob was happy.

History Sources:

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Sweet-History-of-Muffins&id=145416

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muffin