Apple Muffin Tops

These muffin tops are chock full of goodness – whole wheat flour, chopped apples, and non-saturated fats. I really like to use honeycrisp apples but any of your favoring baking apples will do. And don't even bother peeling the apples. The fiber is good for you and doesn't detract from the tastiness. This recipe is adapted from my regular apple muffin recipe. I've added a bit more soy milk so the batter is not as firm. I'm also on a maple syrup and palm sugar kick so I've used those for sweeteners instead of brown and granulated sugars. Makes 12 muffins tops. 

Ingredients
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup soy milk
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
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1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 TB baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup coconut palm sugar (or brown sugar)
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1-1/2 cups apple, peeled, chopped into pea sized pieces with 1/2 cup set aside. (About 1 to 1-1/2 apples depending on size.)

Topping
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Mix together in small bowl.

Directions
Heat oven to 375 degrees. I have a non-stick 6-muffin top pan. I like to lightly wipe each hole with a paper towel that has been sprayed with Pam. Mix all wet ingredients in small bowl and set aside. Mix dry ingredients in large bowl and whisk together. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed. Don't over mix. Fold in 1 cup of the apples.

I like to use an ice cream scoop (sprayed with Pam) to scoop the batter into muffin tins. Spread to the edges. Add the reserved chopped apple to top the muffins. Sprinkle about 1 teaspoon sugar topping (more or less depending on your sweet tooth) over each muffin. Bake 15-18 until lightly browned and inserted toothpick comes out clean. Place muffin tops on wire rack to cool.

Pumpkin Latté – Cheap, Easy and Tasty

This drink is slurp-a-icious! Something else you could make with all that leftover pumpkin. I'm really not into lattes but after I drank one, I made another batch the next day. These are very good. You don't need an espresso maker, just a blender and small saucepan. I used my VitaMix and it was ever so frothy. This recipe comes from ieatgrass.com. I made it just a tad sweeter.

Makes one rather large serving or you could share.

Ingredients
½ cup strongly brewed coffee
(If you have an espresso machine, substitue the coffee for 2 shots espresso)
1 ½ half cups almond or soymilk
2 tbsp unsweetened canned organic pumpkin puree
2-3 tsp pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
pinch of nutmeg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions
Step One:
Brew coffee. While coffee is brewing, continue on to step two.
Step Two:
Place non-dairy milk, pumpkin puree, maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla in small pot on stove. Warm on low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring.
Step Three:
Place pumpkin milk mixture in blender. Blend at high speed for 30-45 seconds, or until frothy.
Step Four:
Pour frothy pumpkin milk mixture into large container. Add coffee. Stir and parcel out into one or two mugs. Enjoy!

Fresh Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

This is a quick bread and it is totally awesome! Not too sweet and nice and moist. I was going through my cupboards the other day and realized I had accumulated four cans of pumpkin. Pumpkin bread came to mind. So I've been scouring the internet looking for a healthy version of pumpkin bread. So many of them have a cup or more of sugar, loads of oil, and use all white flour. I found this recipe on whatwouldcathyeat and it uses more whole wheat than white, and just 3 tablespoons of oil. Interestingly, it called for 6 tablespoons of orange juice. I had a couple organic valencia oranges in my refrigerator so I juiced one and got exactly 6 tablespoons of juice. While Cathy's original recipe is a whole lot healthier than the majority, I made some minor modifications to suit my taste.

Here is the link to Cathy's original recipe.

And here are the modifications I made:

1/2 cup brown sugar substituted with 1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar substituted with 1/3 cup coconut palm sugar
3/4 cup walnuts substituted with 1/4 cup walnuts

I just wanted to use less sugar. I can't bring myself to use a whole cup of sugar in ANYTHING. I reduced the amount of nuts just because I'm not wild about nuts in my bread. Whichever recipe you follow I know you're going to love this bread. I'm thinking that the next time I make it, I might drizzle it with just a bit of sweet stuff (1 cup powdered sugar mixed with 1-2 TB orange juice).

What's Cooking?

 

 Spicy peanut-hoisin noodles with tofu and broccoli 

from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson.

I don't know why she calls it that, it's really a super delicious 

pad thai without a boat load of sugar.

 

Apple Galette.

 A fun Pullman bread pan with lid that makes square bread.

 Here is the "square" bread. Unfortunately, it was "too white" for my palate. 

I won't be making this oat bread again. But I love the pan.

 It ain't pretty but damn – it was good! The ubiquitous Shepherd's Pie. 
I think this is becoming a Thanksgiving tradition.

Single Serving Brownie – Again

This is a riff on the Single Serving Brownie from the Happy Herbivore website. I really love a recipe that is scaled down to small serving especially a brownie. That way you can't eat the whole pan! This is supposed to be ONE brownie but I have these little silicone baking cups that make cute mini brownies. The original recipe is quite good but it has an awful lot of sugar in it (agave, brown sugar, apple sauce) and I was aware of the whole wheat flour while I ate it. So I've changed up the sugars and switched the whole wheat pastry flour to a mix of garbanzo bean and oat flour. My next batch I'm going to try spelt and oat flour. If you use garbanzo flour don't eat the batter, it's a little bitter.

Ingredients
1 TB oat flour
1 TB garbanzo flour
2 tsp light brown sugar
1 TB cocoa
1/4 tsp baking powder
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1 TB chocolate chips
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1 TB maple syrup
1 TB applesauce
2 TB non-dairy milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir the first 5 dry ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until well mixed. Add the chocolate chips and the rest of the ingredients. Stir until well mixed. Pour into 3 small silicone baking cups or a single muffin pan. Bake 20-25 minutes until done.