Mouthful o' muffin!

Raspberries.

They stain my fingers red. And my teeth. And often, my face is covered in streaks of red as I desperately stuff my face.

And yes, they make me happy. Very happy. They make Vodka super happy too - he can lick all the raspberry juice off my face. *so* much of fun, eh? :)

Today was definitely a raspberry day. I probably ate a couple of those baskets from the farmers' market. The berry appetite was sated, but I still wanted to do something with the rest of them. And I've been trying to come up with several lowfat variants of muffins anyway, so this seemed like a perfect opportunity to try a recipe out. Besides, nothing like a load of juicy berries to make up for any shortcomings in my "lowfattitude". Hey, can I trademark that word?

So, in the spirit of some fabulous lowfattitude, I skipped the eggs, used some fatfree cottage cheese to lend some creaminess to the muffins and added a bit of cinnamon for extra flavour.

If you're using frozen berries instead of fresh ones, thaw and drain them before tossing them into the batter.

Rasberry Cottage Cheese Muffins
Stuffin'. A muffin. Into my mouth :)

Servings: 12 regular sized muffins

2 cups white whole wheat flour (I used King Arthur's organic flour - seriously kicks ass!)
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup cottage cheese (fat free)
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup nonfat milk
2 T butter
1 T Earth Balance (whipped spread)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
1-2 cups raspberries
2 t vanilla soy sorbet (lowfat)

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a 12-cup muffin tray with paper cups.

Cream the butter, whipped spread and sugar in a bowl till well blended and smooth.
Add the cottage cheese and buttermilk and mix a bit more.
Stir in the cinnamon along with the vanilla sorbet and beat for 2-3 minutes till thick and creamy.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Mix the flour mixture into the butter/sugar mix, about 1/2 cup at a time.

Once the ingredients are well blended, stir in the raspberries, trying not to break them too much. They will probably break up, but it is pretty heavenly to bit into a piece of raspberry in a muffin, so try to keep that option alive as much as you can :)

Spoon the batter into the lined muffin tray and smoothen the surfaces. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 F.

Stick a toothpick into the muffins to make sure they're baked before taking them out of the oven. Once removed, let them cool in the tray for 10 minutes before removing the muffins and setting them on a cooling rack. Once they're at room temperature, stick them into an airtight container. Or eat them up :)



Opinion

Chewy - yummy wheat flour - earthy and delicious!
Moist - raspberries and cottage cheese worked wonders.
Juicy - courtesy of the raspberries - *so* good!

As someone says ... "Yom!" :)

*****************

Happy Vodka loves those berries! :)

[Photo Courtesy: Stephanie & Shawn of Dog-E-Central]

Mmm ... pancakes!

Us siblings could be called children of a Disney generation - we grew up hooked onto sunday morning Disney cartoons and spent many a summer day perched on a wall or a tree branch reading their comics. And Mickey Mouse made me quite happy - I mean, who couldn't love those fabulously huge ears, that crazy Disney voice that sounded tailor-made for MM, a mouse with a dog (some insist Goofy is a cow!) for a friend, another dog for a pet, such insanity! As much as I've grown past this, and often view Disney productions with a much more skeptical eye, there are some indelible memories associated with this essential piece of our growing years.

So, what does any of this have to do with pancakes? Or even with food? Really. Well, that was the first time we even heard of pancakes - when we saw Mickey eating a ginormous stack of pancakes doused with a mug of maple syrup! Whoa! A mouse can eat a whole stack of those oothappam-lookalikes? Really? And I was filled with this crazy urge to eat those things, I mean - if they made Mickey that happy, they've got to be good, right? Soon after, my sis got hooked onto cooking and started experimenting with various foods (and with us!)

My first meal request was ...

K: Can I have pancakes?
Sis: For dinner?
K: Yessssss!
Sis: You're all crazy, girl!

But she made them anyway!

K: I want a stack of 20 pancakes for dinner.
Sis: You're all crazy, girl. You're just getting 4.
K: *grumble* *grumble* Guess that's better than zero.

Well ... I have no idea how the hell MM ate that stack, I remember struggling to finish those four small pancakes! And they were delicious :)



Anyway, years have gone by, pancakes are not the hot favourite breakfast (or dinner) item very often, mostly because I don't have much of a sweet tooth when it comes to breakfast. But every once in a while, I do get a hankering for these, especially if the recipe has a multi-grain twist to it! This recipe is adapted from Didi Emmons' Vegetarian Planet - such a happy book!

These pancakes worked really well with a simple apple compote - honey crisps with a touch of spices and a light port marinade.

Oat-Corn Pancakes
Goodness sans eggs and sugar!

Servings: About 7 pancakes

1 T unsalted butter
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 t salt
1/4 t baking soda
1 cup buttermilk

Melt the butter over medium heat till it browns and starts to clarify, and set it aside.
In a food processor, grind the oats and transfer to a bowl.
Mix the cornmeal, salt and baking soda with the oats.
Add the buttermilk and stir well.
Now stir in the butter, continue mixing for a couple of minutes to ensure there are no lumps in the batter.

Heat a griddle to medium hot and grease it lightly.
With a small ladle, pour the batter onto the griddle to form 4-5" pancakes.
Cook till bubbles appear on top of the pancakes, then flip them and cook for 1-2 minutes more.
Keep the cooked pancakes warm in a slow oven while the rest are being made.

***

Apple Compote
Sweet and spicy fruit love!

Servings: 2 cups of compote (generous to go with 7-8 pancakes)

2 honey crisp apples - cored and cubed
1/2 cup water
2 T port or muscat
1/2 T brown sugar
1/8 t ground cinnamon
1/8 t ground nutmeg
1/8 t ground cloves
1/4 vanilla bean pod (split)
a pinch of salt

In a large saucepan, combine all the ingredients except for the apples.
Boil gently till the sugar is dissolved and the mixture thickens (about 5 minutes).
Add the apples and return to a boil, stirring constantly.
Cook till the apples start getting tender and the mixture has thickened around the apple bits (takes about 12-14 minutes).
Take off the heat and remove the vanilla bean pods.
Cool to room temperature before serving.

Note: If you want a super mushy, almost-spreadable compote, continue to cook the apples for another 8-10 minutes.



Opinion?

We ate these pancakes like oothappams - a dollop of compote wrapped in a shred of pancake. Weeeeeeeeeee!!! *so* much of grain and fruit goodness! This goes off to Mansi for the current edition of Weekend Breakfast Blogging - Nandita's brainchild. Thanks, Mansi and Nandita for hosting/starting this event!

And yes, I'm absolutely sending this over to Srivalli - how could I not be part of her fabulous insanity - a Dosa Mela!!! And Bee, what would I do without you - my favourite event reminder :) Thanks, monkee!

Banana Soy Muffins with pomegranate pear syrup

Weekend Breakfast Blogging had my attention over the last couple of days - after the soy pancakes turned out great, I really wanted to make another soy-based breakfast recipe. Kind of hard to work primarily with soy flour though - it has no gluten content, which means no elasticity and there is no assistance during fermentation which is what helps the bread rise when baking. In addition to these, gluten helps keep the shape of the bread since it firms up when cooked.

Gluten resources for those interested:

Gluten on Wikipedia
Gluten composition in cereals and gluten disease
Gluten free recipes

Anyway, after poking around several cookbooks and sites, I couldn't quite find any cake or bread recipe that didn't use a combination of soy flour with either wheat or rice or triticum flour. Oh well, guess I just had to try it out - and hope that the end result is somewhat edible. I decided to play it safe and try a banana muffin recipe with soy flour. And to make things even simpler, I microwaved them - that's what happens when you clean your kitchen shelves and find this odd looking microwaveable muffin tray :)

Banana Soy Muffins
Microwaved, no less!

Servings: 6 muffins

1/2 cup soy flour
1/4 cup egg whites (I used Nulaid)
1 t baking powder
1 t olive oil
2 small overripe bananas
6-7 almonds - chopped

Grease the muffin tray with oil spray.
Beat all ingredients together till the batter is smooth and thick.
Dole out equal portions into each of the muffin holes (is there a real name for these?).
Microwave for 8-9 minutes.

Drizzle some pomegranate-pear syrup over each muffin and let them sit for a few minutes before noshing :)

Any good?

They are pretty good! I'm eating one as I type and I'm really liking it :) The shapes are kind of wonky, they almost look like a hybrid of muffins and scones! But they turned out pretty soft and moist, not really chewy (hell, I need some gluten for that!), but the slightly sweet flavour of the soy flour along with the bananas made the muffins pretty tasty even without the syrup! And it took all of 15 minutes!



This recipe is a definite keeper. And I have a submission for WBB (Nandita's brainchild) - this goes to Rajitha who is hosting this month's event - themed Soy. Yay!