Pumpkin Muffins: The End

I've long been on a quest for the perfect pumpkin muffin. My testing has been neither thorough, nor exhaustive, but after finding this recipe, I've decided to stop looking.

Of course, finding is a relative term. Misreading is perhaps a better way to put it. The recipe clearly says 1 cup of pumpkin, so I added a whole can. I'd like to think this is a major contributing factor to their deliciousness.

I know it's not even remotely close to pumpkin season. In fact, you're probably much more concerned with how to use the plethora of strawberries and stone fruits that are just coming into season.

I'm hoping that you also happen to have a can of pumpkin left in your pantry: it is always wise to stockpile such precious commodities. If so, make these immediately. Strawberries can wait. (Or you can have one for breakfast, with strawberries on the side.)

If not, I'm sorry. Put them on your calendar, sometime in October. (September if you can get away with it!)

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The Perfect Pumpkin Muffin
makes 6 jumbo muffins (note: if they were regular size, they wouldn't be perfect)

1c sugar
2 eggs
0.25t baking powder
1t baking soda
0.75t salt
1.5c whole wheat flour
0.5c oil
0.5c cold water
1 15oz can pumpkin (yes, the whole thing)
spices: 1T cinnamon, 0.5t nutmeg, 0.5t cloves, 0.5t ginger

1. Mix all ingredients together. No, seriously, that's all.
2. Pour into jumbo muffin cups. (We use silicone ones.) Bake for 50 minutes at 325.
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Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Low Fat Banana Bread

The other morning, I woke up at 10AM (ah, the life of a college student) with a pile of mushy bananas in my room. I looked at the clock and started some calculating in my head. I need to be at work at 1PM, which left me 3 hours to make banana bread, get dressed, go to brunch and get to work. Definitely enough time.

These bananas were perfect for banana bread.

Well, it turns out I'm not super efficient in the mornings, and 3 hours is really 2 hours when the banana bread takes an hour to bake (and you have to watch it the whole time). Fortunately, everything worked out.

This banana bread is moist, tender and full of banana flavor. Great for when you have a lot of mushy bananas (and who ever has just one brown banana?). Use whole wheat flour for extra nutrition, white flour for extra convenience; spread with Nutella for extra delicious.

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Low Fat High Banana Bread
makes 1 loaf

Chocolate Coffee Banana Bread

Winter fruit selection is often depressing at best, so imagine my dismay when our dining hall ran out of oranges and decided to make do with mushy bananas. I'm okay with yellow bananas, but mushy is just beyond me.

Except, of course, in banana bread. So I did all of the other eaters a favor, and grabbed as many mushy bananas as I could without seeming too ridiculous. (Honestly, I think the staff are used to me doing ridiculous things at this point, like asking for a veggie omelet without the eggs.)

I made both regular and chocolate coffee banana bread in one morning.

Then, I began the quest for a suitable banana bread recipe. I had my mom's recipe tucked away in my email, but with the amount of butter it called for, it was much closer to cake. I needed something that wouldn't use up D's single dessert quota for the day.

After opening about 30 tabs worth of lowfat banana bread recipes in Safari, almost all of which called for margarine or applesauce, I finally found one. Ok, the original calls for applesauce, but I just used milk. 

Now, this is an incredible banana bread recipe, perfect just on its own. But when you run out of chocolate chips, and chocolate, the only solution is to take perfectly good banana bread, and add cocoa powder... and then eat said chocolate banana bread for breakfast the next day. And what is better than chocolate? Chocolate and coffee.. so I did it.

Once reinforcements arrived in the form of a care package, I realized I had to make this again, but with chocolate chips and cappuccino chips. Yes, I still ate it for breakfast.

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Chocolate Coffee Banana Bread

makes 1 large loaf

Equipment

loaf pan

2 mixing bowls + mixing instrument(s)

kitchen scale (optional)

measuring cups

butter melting device

oven

Pumpkin Muffins Take 5: Almost Perfect

I say almost, because I'm sure they could be better, but these are spectacular. They're moist, fluffy and tender, with a great balance between pumpkin and spice. Everything you could ever want in a pumpkin muffin! And they've come a long way since the first round of pumpkin muffins!

I made these by adapting a banana bread recipe, and substituting pumpkin for banana. They ended up a bit too wet the first time I made them, so I increased the rest of the ingredients and used a second egg in place of more milk. I liked the banana bread recipe because it used so much banana, but still used a bit of butter to give it just enough fat and richness.

Post about banana bread is coming soon (it's the best I've ever tasted!) but for now, you'll have to live with pumpkin muffins. How awful.

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Pumpkin Muffins Take 5
makes 18 large muffins

(Almost Vegan) Banana Bread

I was so excited for this to be vegan.. but then I used honey. Oops. I have some ideas for future honey replacement, so expect to see an updated, actually vegan version of this in the future.

For now, if you're an ok-with-honey vegan, give it a shot. (Or replace the honey with either agave or malt syrup! Although honey works as an emulsifier, which you need if you're leaving out the eggs, so this may not work very well. If you do this, you may want to consider using egg replacer instead of flaxseed meal.)

Also, coconut in banana bread is a great idea. Do it.

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Almost Vegan Banana Bread
makes one loaf

Equipment
kitchen scale (although I've included approximate measurements!)
measuring cups
bowl
loaf pan (or muffin tins)
fork/spoon

Ingredients

2T flaxseed meal

3.8oz soy milk (7T + 2t)

3.2 oz vegetable oil (6T)
3.75 oz brown sugar (0.5c)
1t vanilla extract
0.75t baking soda
0.5t salt
3 super ripe bananas (about 15 ounces without peels)
3oz. honey (6T)
8oz whole wheat flour (about 1.75c)
2oz chopped nuts (about 0.5c)
handful of unsweetened, shredded coconut (optional)