You might be fooled by some of my posts recently, and my activity in the kitchen, but I'm not actually much of a baker. Recently, I think in large part to taking the Ashwaganda, I've had this sort of manic...though not quite manic...rush in my step to do certain things. I've always had a sort of drive in the back of my head to do various things, but many of them never got done over the years. Now, for some reason, I just feel the urge to make bread and baked goods.
Well, the other day I kinda got the urge to make some oat muffins. At first I thought about adapting the recipe I used for honey oat bread to muffins...or at least the size. But, muffins aren't very often yeast based. They use things like eggs and baking powder to rise. So, I eventually decided to just find a recipe for oat muffins. In hindsight, maybe I should have just tried adapting the recipe. Little oat bread muffins might be good. But now I'm really low on honey anyway.
Finding oat muffin recipes is actually pretty hard! I couldn't manage to find a plain oat muffin recipe that I liked. But I did have some apples laying around, some of them bruised a little, which seemed like the perfect candidates for baking! So I picked out an Apple Oat Muffin recipe that seemed alright.
The ingredients from the original recipe are as follows:
1 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups thinly diced apples
1/3 cup old fashioned oats
So I got out the rotary cutting attachment for my mixer, because I'm a lazy git.
In hindsight, maybe I should have used the slicing drum, or just have cut it by hand. But I don't really like big chunks of apple in my apple muffins.
I started by cutting out the bad bits and the cores.
I ended up with something that looked like really chunky raw apple sauce. Which, isn't actually that bad, since I'm not really a huge fan of eating apples raw, so something like this might not be so bad. But it was likely a bit of overkill for my muffins.
Three Apples ended up being about a cup and a half. Was pretty close, so that was good.
Now here is where I start intentionally messing up the recipe.
You see, I like flax. I don't really know why. My body just seems to really like it. Must be because it likes the omegas.
I also didn't have any wheat flour. Oops. But the recipe called for it. So rather than just replacing the wheat flour with all purpose flour, I decided to replace it with flax, which I normally would replace the egg with. This means that it has a ton more flax than if I had only replaced the egg with 1 tablespoon. I also figured that just leaving it out wouldn't mess up the recipe too much. There's plenty of wiggle room in there I'm sure.
So I measured out 2/3rds cups flaxseed meal.
I decided to just mix it in with the apples and add the milk and oil to it, since, as with most recipes, the liquid and dry ingredients are mixed separately. This is to prevent over mixing to let the muffins rise more. I didn't really know this at the time and didn't really think about it. In hindsight, I'd just put the flax in the milk to let it coagulate, I guess with 3 extra tablespoons water.
I then measured out the milk to add to it.
Then the oil.
And then I realized that for sure I didn't have enough of my cheapo fake vanilla non-extract shit. Oh well. I got some in there.
Not pictured is somewhere around here where I measured out the honey. Not really an easy step to take a picture of, because one's hands are busy trying not to get honey everywhere.
I then measured out and combined all the dry ingredients then whisked them together. Not exactly much to see. Figured I'd save some effort in pics and just took a pic of the white conglomeration.
Plop.
I folded the apple and other liquid ingredients in with my rubber spatula, then just poured the oats on top before I was even done really.
I have to say, looking at the pics now, that looks like some delicious batter. I might have to try this experimental recipe again.
I then plopped it into the my jumbo muffin tins, which I had brushed with oil.
On a side note: Don't use oil sprays. They're bad for your lungs, and some of them aren't even normal oil that you would eat. Just get a pastry brush and paint on some oil. Don't be a lazy git. It's cheaper and better for you and the environment.
They didn't turn out so bad...but they weren't exactly high domed. After making this first batch of fuckups, I realized I should have let the batter sit to coagulate and let the yeast break down into sugars and all that crap, which allows the muffins to rise more.
The muffins were actually really good still though. Even if they were a bit heavier than most muffins and not high domed and shit, they were good.
If I had let the batter sit a bit longer and cooked it a bit hotter at the start they would have popped up a bit more apparently...but with cooking you learn a lot as you try out recipes and look up why it didn't work out. They still tasted pretty good.
YUM! They look great! I also get an urge to bake and I can't stop myself. The problem is that it's just me and my husband so we usually eat each cake for a week or so :D
Flax seeds are great! I use them every day. They replace eggs perfectly in baking recipes.
I'm sure they were delicious even though they didn't pop up the way you wanted. But as you said, you learned something and next time it will be better :)
Thank you for sharing and have a great weekend!
Well, cupcakes and muffins help with that, because then you have the urge to eat a whole one each time you want some. :P
I came for muffins, but this looks like...
Health food.
Nooooooo!
That's how they get you.
I want your kitchenaid so bad.
That's what all the girls say.
Your recipe posts always make me cackle like a little fat kid over here. 😆 Who knew making muffins could be so hilarious? Honestly though, I love to intentionally mess up recipes to switch ingredients out for better alternatives. The muffins sound great 😋 and thanks for the giggles.
:D
I actually don't even remember what I said that was funny. XD I just sort of ramble while going through the pictures. But I do think about what I'm gonna post while taking the pics and cooking.
Cooking isn't like some chemically perfect process that I have to follow the same every time for me. Most recipes you find online aren't even that good anyway. Many of them are just completely wrong in at least a few ways. And you're probably gonna mess it up the first time anyway, even if it is perfect. So, if you wanna make it with something because you don't have something else, or because you want a certain something, why not try it out? Worst that can happen is it doesn't turn out that great. Then you learned something. And with me posting about it, I now have a reference to what I did and what I did wrong. Maybe however I changed it might be the first step to a new recipe. Because there are hundreds of thousands of possible combinations of ingredients possible. You can't know if they'll work unless you try.
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