Sunday, April 17, 2011

Good Results

To me there is something about baking that just makes me so joyful. I find very few things in life bring me as much satisfaction as taking something out of the oven. When that something is beautiful and tasty as well? I bet they have these muffins in heaven.

Last night I stumbled across a recipe for beet blueberry muffins. I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it here before, but I have made beet brownies that were delicious. I even brought them into work and no one knew there were beets hiding inside. Of course, beets in a muffin of the non chocolate variety is no easy thing to hide. Good think I like my food funny looking. I think it spices up life. I altered the original recipe a bit in two ways. The first batch I made without beets and with apple sauce instead and for both batches I changed up the flour types.

Blueberry Muffins

3 Tablespoons non-dairy milk
2 Tablespoons lemon juice

1 ¼ cups apple sauce
½ cup canola oil
¾ cup sugar sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup high gluten bread flour flour
1 ½ teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda

1 cup blueberries, fresh (sliced in half)

I mixed the lemon juice and the soy milk in it's own dish, then combined the apple sauce, oil, sugar, vanilla and salt together. I whisked the dry ingredients and then added both the wets. Then I folded in the halved blueberries.

Add by ice cream scoop (or utensil of choice) into 12 silicone or paper muffin cups.

I fudged the temperature as the original recipe tells you how to roast beets but I left the oven at 400 degrees for this version. 25 and they were perfect. Original recipe actually called for them at 325. Or maybe you don't even know the real temp of your oven and it wont matter. I set mine for 400 lately and it shoots up to 450. Se la vie.

Without further ado...
I think it's the bread flour that did it, but the un-beet muffin is light and fluffy with a beautiful top. Delicious. Then I made a second batch for myself. The same recipe as above, but puree 2 beets to replace the apple sauce. I think mine was a bit thick and could have used a bit more non-dairy milk, but they turned out equally delicious. I would seriously say that these are the best home made muffins I think I have ever made, vegan or not.


I only have one set of silicone molds so I made the second batch without anything and I wish I had some paper lines because the bottoms lost their beautiful pink color. Hope you enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Those muffins are beautiful! I'm always trying to work beets into desserts because I love the pink color :)
    I once made some bright pink macaroons!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have never really tried macaroons. That's coconut, right?

    ReplyDelete