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2 Ingredient Pumpkin Muffins

Well, hello again!  I can't even pretend to be surprised anymore that it's been so long. 

This really is a two ingredient pumpkin muffin. Kind of. So I guess not really, but really. Are you confused yet?  

2 Ingredient (Incredibly Easy and not confusing) Pumpkin Muffins:

1 box Spice Cake Mix - regular size (525gr or so)*

1 can (400ml or 15oz or somewhere close to either of those numbers) can of Pumpkin Puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling, just plain pumpkin)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Makes 12 muffins.

Mix these two ingredients together until well blended. Scoop into prepared muffin tins, either greased or lined with papers. The batter is VERY thick, and this will make 12 really full muffins, but don't worry - they won't spill over. If you want prettier muffins than mine, wet the back of a spoon and smooth the tops. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes. 

That's it! See - it is easy. And it's kind of two ingredients, if you discount the fact that boxed cake mix is a zillion ingredients.

* this little asterisk is there so I can tell you that Betty Crocker has made it's boxed cake mixes smaller. Yes, smaller. It still makes the same amount of cupcakes or cakes, but the volume of mix is less than last year. I know this because I bought some Betty Crocker cake mixes on sale and then found one box buried in the back of my cupboard. The instructions are similar, but the new, smaller boxes call for a little less water, and they suggest filling the muffin tins less. Subtle.  

Gluten free Blueberry Oatmeal muffins

Well, that's been a long hiatus!  

I decided to post this recipe because I've noticed how hard it is to find simple Gluten-Free recipes!  My significant other is undergoing some investigation for Gluten intolerance and/or Celiac disease, so I have started experimenting with wheat free cooking.  It's a challenge, that's for sure!  Bread will be the next big thing I attempt, since both of us really used to enjoy those grainy artisan breads from the bakery.  

Mark (my significant other) wants me to make gluten-free beer, but I think I'll stick to baking. This recipe calls for ingredients that should be easy to find. 

Just a note about ingredients:  I've used oatmeal in these, and oatmeal is generally considered safe for Celiac and wheat-free diets (and here is another link from Health Canada).  However, the 'generally' is there because there is some fear of cross-contamination of the grain. If you are incredibly sensitive to gluten, or deathly allergic to wheat, please use caution with the oatmeal!  If in any doubt at all, don't make these, and if only a little worried, then make sure to use certified gluten and wheat free oats. If you are newly diagnosed, then tuck this recipe away, and make it when you are reintroducing potentially problematic foods!

Artisan bread English Muffins

I really am on the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day kick right now.  I can't stress enough how easy the bread is to make, and how great it turns out! I typically use the Light Whole Wheat recipe from the book, and I cheat and bake it in a loaf pan (I don't have a pizza stone, which is the suggested thing to cook the bread on). It has turned out great, it's incredibly cheap to make, and I can make so many different things with the dough that is always ready and waiting in my fridge.

There is an english muffin recipe on the Artisan Bread site, but I wanted something easier, and I wanted to cook my english muffins on a griddle. The official website recipe calls for English muffin forms, and letting the dough rise, baking in the oven, and then the muffins turn out  rounded on one side. That actually *does* offend my sensibilities, so I did things a little differently.  

This is why I love this bread dough - I pulled my dough out of the fridge, freezing cold, and sort of patted it out/rolled it out on a counter sprinkled with cornmeal until it was about 1/4 inch thick (maybe slightly thicker). I made sure that both sides were well coated with cornmeal (yum! A favourite of mine), and with no rest, no rise, no warming up, I cut the muffins out with a clean empty tuna can. Then I put 7 of them on my electric griddle at medium heat. The time to do all this was at most 5 minutes, and it took about 10 minutes of unsupervised cooking to have the muffins finished.  Easy. Cheap. Did I mention easy, and cheap? The English muffins were fantastic to boot! The only thing I may do differently is to let the muffins rise slightly before cooking, more to allow the dough to warm up first - it was hard to get the muffins to cook through to the centre when the dough was so cold.

Whole Wheat Carrot Pineapple Muffins

Whole Wheat Carrot Pineapple Muffins are sort of a 'creation from leftovers' special.  New Year's Eve here at my house was a family friendly affair, and we made eight different kinds of homemade pizza for all the kids and adults.  One of the pizzas we made was a Hawaiin pizza (we'll talk about the steak dinner pizza later!), and I ended up having a half can of pineapple tidbits leftover.  From the veggie tray, I managed to salvage a few carrot sticks - and the inspiration for Carrot Pineapple Muffins was born.  I added in some whole wheat flour, mainly because I have some lingering around, and I thought it would add some flavour and 'healthy' to a nice treat.  The amount of whole wheat flour can be adjusted up, if you'd like more whole wheat in your muffins, but in my experience, a little white flour is needed to lighten them up. If you do try all whole wheat and they turn out great, then let me know, I'd love to hear about it. To get the crushed pineapple called for in the recipe, I whizzed the leftover pineapple tidbits in my food processor until I had something probably more correctly called pureed or pulverized pineapple, but it worked.

For the New Year's Eve party, we had a Nintendo Wii competition for the kids, and a Playstation2 Sing Star competition for the adults!  I highly recommend Sing Star - what a hoot!  I'm pretty confident saying we all had a great time, and I can't wait for the next party.  

Apple Pie Muffins

 

It's been a while. Thanks to the power of Facebook and a little apple spice muffin bragging, here I am posting a new recipe. I was actually craving an apple pie, but that seemed like too much work, so I did a little hunting and came up with this recipe. It's an old recipe I had around, but hadn't made in a long time - I'll definitely have to keep it in the roster. There's a great topping on these, sorta like the top of a Dutch Apple Pie. Enjoy! These are really moist, yummy apple spice muffins. They taste good coming out of the oven, but they're even better the next day.

Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

So after a month off, and the back to school rush, I'm finally back to my blog. These Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins turned out awesome, and they are low fat as an extra bonus. For an even healthier snack you can substitute some or all of the white flour for whole wheat, and use splenda instead of sugar. I've used regular chocolate chips in this recipe, but I think I will try the miniature chips next time. Either way - bananas and chocolate are a great pair!

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins.

 I know I say that I don't eat pre-packaged food and stay away from chemical additions, but I have a confession to make - I have a thing for Quaker Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins. The frugal side of me cringes at the thought of buying a package of Muffin mix, but there is just something about it that I like. In the effort to save face, and money, I searched and found an Oatmeal Muffin recipe that is similar to the packaged kind. I added the chocolate chips - what's an Oatmeal Muffin without chocolate chips? - and I'm pretty happy with the results. I think I'll still have the occasional lapse but I'm pretty sure this muffin methadone will help me cut back.