If you had a mother obsessed with health who added many a grainy hemp heart (shelled hemp seeds) to your baked goods you might feel, ‘fat holds the flavor.’ Being a full-time glutton vegetarian and part-time vegan I have tested the boundaries of tasty baking. One might say it is a conflicted border on the edge of baking for flavor and baking for health benefits. I say – let’s try again.
Tricked out muffins: First of all it is important to recognize what people have done in the past: no eggs? Add more baking powder, or yogurt, or applesauce, or soft tofu as a binding or leavening agent. No butter? Add soy margarine or canola oil, or in the case of a savory muffin some olive oil. The truth is, if you are expecting the same results with vegan baking as you are with regular “whole-milk and butter” baking, of course you are going to be disappointed. This does not mean all vegan cupcakes have the consistency of a two-month-old-doughnut-hole-you-found-under-the-refrigerator-when-you-moved.
It was a Monday night, I wanted muffins. So I found an almond muffin recipe online and started to throw materials together for the two cups flour I substituted ½ cup spelt flour (often used as a replacement for wheat for those allergic to gluten), ½ cup oats and ½ cup organic wheat pastry flour a little short on the ½ cup oil, 1 cup of sugar, one egg, a tablespoon baking powder some chopped almonds, dash of cinnamon and handful of dried cranberries and 20 minutes later at 350 degrees, POOF I was done.
The muffins came out dry – parched mouth dry, they obviously needed more fat, in this case oil. I will say the next day this muffins were heavenly, I toasted a couple and put a mix of honey and cream cheese (impromptu frosting) on each half and it was very tasty. I suggest using pecans or walnuts (as the less fatty cousin) in baking because they react well with heat. Sometimes almonds can get a bit chewy.
A week later I went for round two with the health muffin and I tried one of the special vegan recipes from a cookbook given to me by a friend, Vegan with a Vengeance. Just to taste the difference I found an equally delicious and fatty recipe for muffins and then waited to see what would come out of it.
There is a reason pastry chefs are hesitant to work with ‘healthy’ ingredients, you can get some unexpected results and in any science you try to standardize results. If you change just one variable for instance raw cane sugar instead of regular bleached white sugar things change drastically you might get better flavor but less fluffy texture. It is up in the air. If you are just starting to bake these are not the experiments to start with, they will probably make you a sad baker. Plus your friends will laugh at you.
So start with the regular recipes and work your way up, sample new flours and materials “what happens when I toast the nuts before hand?” (often creates ‘nuttier’ flavor adds a kick to most dishes). Can I use soy yogurt in place of regular yogurt? Yes. These questions often depend on what you are trying to make, yogurt or apple sauce as a replacement of eggs in a cake is fine because it is more moist. If you try to add yogurt to a pancake recipe things may turn out much differently, with much sticking to the pan.
Results of round two, I made mini muffins and full sized of the vegan variety and the butter+egg variety but I could not leave things that simple. From the beginning I started tweaking the recipe, I did not have apple juice so I put in orange juice I did not have apples so I put in frozen figs and pomegranate seeds I had lying around. I liked the result, the roommate said it stuck to the roof of her mouth, but was sufficiently moist and fluffy.
The other recipe I used asked for all purpose but I thought I would add a 1/2 cup spelt flour just to see if the flavor was more interesting, and I used half brown sugar because there were not a lot of flavors coming into play. The muffin was way too dense, but surprisingly even though I found them less appetizing (I stuck almonds in what I imagined an ornamental tricorner hat on top). It didn’t rise, this may have to do with the fact that I realized my roommate had thrown out her regular milk and I only had rice milk so I used that as a replacement. I have a hard time following my own rules. But the flavor was good in both, it was the consistency issue that was less appetizing on the fatty muffin.
Proceed with caution changing more than one ingredient at a time, for instance changing butter to oil and milk to rice/soy milk can often lead to a loss of milk fat binding and it will be crumbly. One thing is for sure, at the end of the baking the results will often be eaten no matter who sneers at them when they come out of the oven because very few college students make time for ‘scratch’ baking in their busy schedules. In the end, what roommate does not want a muffin? Yes, even a healthy one.
Because I am still in quest for the perfect healthy muffin, I asked around and a friend volunteered Sam Byrnes’ tasty modified recipe from Middle of the Road Muffins.
Here it is in normal recipe format:
Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup wheat flour
½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1/2teaspoon baking soda
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup maple syrup or honey
¼ cup canola oil
¾ teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ smashed banana
1 cup coconut
½ cup chocolate chips
½ cup raisins (optional crasins, dried sour cherries, dried currants)
½ cup chopped pecans (or almonds)
(* feel free to add ¼ cup sunflowers and/or pumpkin seeds ‘pepitas’)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Stir together oats, flour, sugar, salt and baking soda for dry ingredient blend. Set aside.
Blend peanut butter, syrup, oil and vanilla; stir in bananas.
Add about 1/3 of dry mix to the wet, stir in and then add another third and continue until mix is uniform. Then add “extras” one at a time, the chocolate chips, nuts etc
Drop batter into greased muffin pan.
Bake approximately 20 minutes until edges are browned you can check for ‘doneness’ with a toothpick in the center of one your muffins – if it comes out clean it is done, if it comes out with muffin stuck to it, keep them in another 2-5 minutes; cool completely before turning out.
Prep time: one hour and serves 12-18 hungry students on an optimistic day.
Byrnes suggests, “I would just note it’s really easy to change what you put in the recipe and still get a tasty result. As for making them more healthy, it’s all about the base ingredients (for instance I only bake with whole wheat flour because it’s certainly better for you than white or bleached flour.)”
