Fix Me A Snack

These moist, sweet, and satisfying muffins take my whole family to our happy place. They are great stand-ins for cookies; in some ways they’re even more enjoyable!

This recipe was inspired by one from Nook & Pantry - a very yummy looking blog.

For the muffins:

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour (or all-purpose)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup finely shredded carrot
1/4 cup raisins, chopped

For the filling:

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

In a small bowl, make the filling by mixing together the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and oil. Stir in the flour mixture until combined. Then add the carrot and raisins. Stir to incorporate.

 Spoon the muffin batter into a well-greased mini muffin pan, filling each cup only half way. Then place one teaspoon of the filling in each cup. Cover the filling with the remaining muffin batter.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the largest muffin comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pan for 5-10 minutes before gently moving them to a cooling rack. Serve. Store in an airtight container for up to 48 hours or freeze in an airtight container in a single layer.

Yield: 24 mini muffins
Prep-time: 30 minutes
Bake time: 13 minutes

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This snack is inspired by the Salad Bars recipe in Julie Van Rosendaal’s cookbook Grazing. If you’re feeling extra fancy, top them with some vanilla greek-style yogurt!

1 cup white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon ketchup or tomato paste
1 cup grated zucchini
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a mini muffin pan and set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and ketchup. Pour the flour mixture into the bowl and stir to combine. Add the zucchini, carrot and raisins and stir until evenly distributed.

Transfer batter to mini muffin pan, filling each cup approximately 3/4 full. Bake on the center rack of the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Yield: 24 mini muffins
Prep-time: 20 minutes
Bake-time: 15 minutes

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A friend of mine special-ordered this recipe. I hope it provides a happy home for all of her overripe bananas.

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup mashed ripe banana (from two medium bananas)
1/3 cup canola oil
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Put the oats, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse for 10 seconds. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the egg, banana, oil, honey, buttermilk and vanilla. Make sure that the honey is dissolved and not hiding out anywhere in a big clump. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and stir to combine. Add the blueberries and fold them in gently.

Pour batter into a greased muffin tin. Fill the cups 3/4 full. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the biggest muffin comes out clean.

Yield: 12 muffins
Prep-time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 23 minutes

Note: My friend tested these out for me and told me that mini muffins only take 13 minutes to bake. Oh, and she said they have earned a place in her recipe box! Yippee!

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Have you ever tried to create your own muffin recipe ? Let me tell you that the ol’ ratio of 1 teaspoon of baking powder to 1 cup of flour has never worked for me.

I have gotten lucky when buttermilk is in the mix, for instance with my Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe. All you have to do there is figure out how much baking soda to use to balance out the acidity of the buttermilk. Easy (sort of).

For this recipe I finally broke down and looked up a recipe on the glorious Interweb. In swooped the Pioneer Woman with a Cheese Muffin recipe. I found these muffins to be perfectly leavened, but greasier than what I was going for. So I made some changes and here you go:

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I’ve got way too much applesauce taking up valuable real estate in my fridge. These muffins are deliciously moist and sweet out of the oven and well into the next couple days (that’s as long as they lasted here).

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1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup lowfat milk
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 F

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, Italian Seasoning, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together, egg, olive oil, sugar, buttermilk, milk, tomato paste, cottage cheese and parmesan cheese until almost uniform in color. Small bits of tomato and cheese are actually a good thing so do not over mix.

Transfer batter to a muffin pan sprayed with oil. Fill each muffin cup up to ¾ full with batter. Bake on a rack in the center of the oven for 15 – 17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Allow muffins to cool for 5 minutes in pan and then transfer to a cooling rack. Serve or store in an airtight container.

Yield: 12 muffins
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 15 minutes

Note: If you don’t have any buttermilk, you can make a substitute. If you don’t have any white whole wheat flour, I’d suggest replacing it with 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of whole wheat pastry flour.

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1/4 cup walnut oil
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
3/4 cup buttermilk

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Mix oil and sugar in large bowl. Add egg and vanilla and mix again. Add bananas and buttermilk and mix well and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flours, flaxseed, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.
Pour flour mixture into banana mixture and stir until just combined. Add chocolate chips and stir to disperse chips in batter.

Spoon batter into greased mini muffin pan (makes 1 and 1/2 pans).
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Move to wire rack to cool. Serve warm or cooled.

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I found some Grandma’s Robust Molasses at the supermarket. I have no idea what makes it “robust”, but 1 tablespoon has 20% RDA of Iron so I’m not asking questions! Try it in this recipe. They are very moist and delicious, if I do say so myself.

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick), softened
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/4 cup oil
8 whole dried dates, pitted and chopped (optional, but tasty)

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Combine dry ingredients in medium bowl with whisk – flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Cream softened butter and brown sugar in large bowl. Add molasses, egg, buttermilk, pumpkin, and oil and stir. Pour in the flour mixture and stir to combine.

Bake in greased mini muffin pan for 15 minutes (give or take). Roughly 20-25 minutes for regular sized muffins or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack and serve warm or cooled.

(Inspired by a recipe from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, http://www.eatwisconsincheese.com/recipes/article.aspx?rid=1618)

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