Fruit and Nut Ricotta Cheese Muffins

When you think baking is a cake is too much work, bake some muffins. Even though this is baker banter, the moral behind is that when something seems too big to accomplish, take baby steps. 

Muffins always make me happy. They're easy to make, easy to eat and always handy. You don't need a fork to eat them. You can eat them while driving..while on the phone...while feeding your baby (which takes eternity by the way!)..while putting up Christmas ornaments..or just about any time you feel like eating one. 

This muffin here is a "throw all you find in the batter" kind of muffin. My sister's left over dried jujubes, some dried sweet candy fruit, some coconut, almonds etc..all went in here. This recipe base is from Joy of Baking's chocolate ricotta cheese muffin. I used the flour, egg, sugar, butter measurements from there and then added the fruits and nuts sans the chocolate. (I know..I'm twisted). 

Here's the basic ingredients and measurements -

Ricotta Cheese - 1 cup
Eggs - 2 large
1 1/3 cup Milk
1 tbsp Vanilla extract
4 tbsps Unsalted Butter melted and cooled
2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Dried fruits - Jujubes, dried cherries, etc - 1/4 cup each if using 2 ingredients - if more or less, adjust the quantity accordingly. Total should be about 1/2 cup
Sweetened dessicated coconut - 1/2 cup
Sliced or broken almonds - 1/2 cup

Here are the dried Jujubes...courtesy my sister and her visit to the farmers market. These are chewy with a subtle sweetness and my mind screams granola bars when I see them. I will have to calm my mind sometime soon..

Some dried sweet 'tutti-fruiti' - I bought a whole big packet a while back and had major plans of baking a lot of things with this. And then days passed..the pack shrunk in size. All I have to say they make a great quick dessert after a meal..no wonder the pack shrunk..

Chop up some almonds if you don't have the pricey sliced almonds at home. These are roasted almonds.

And of course sweetened dessicated coconut. My favorite. If you have some of this, mix them up with melted semi sweet chocolate chips and you have a pronto german chocolate cream.

Add all the fry ingredients and mix together. Add the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder and set aside.

In another bowl, add the ricotta cheese, eggs, melted butter and vanilla extract and mix everything together until the eggs are well incorporated.

Finally add the milk in here and whisk together well.

Slowly mix together the dry and wet ingredients in low speed.

Mix all the fruit and nut ingredients in a bowl.

Add the mixed fruit and nuts to the batter.

Pour spoonfuls 3/4 way in a lined muffin pan. Bake in a pre heated oven at 350F for about 20 mins until the muffins are well done.

Take them out when golden and you know what to do next.

Stare at them for a while and then gorge down on them.

And here's how they look inside packed with the fruits and nuts. Delicious biteable muffins.

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and a very Happy New Year!!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Strawberry Banana Muffins - Eggless

I wonder - why did not Little Miss Muffet sit on a tuffet and eat Muffins? Why did she have to eat her curds and whey? 

Just the smell of a warm muffin out of the oven is so comforting. Its like cupcakes for the grown ups. Just a wholesome warm little cup muffin. And if it has ingredients like strawberry and bananas in it, that's just added appeal. 

Baking again this time for A Sweet Punch series, here's us presenting a Strawberry Banana Muffin with a recipe from the Joy of Baking site. I changed the recipe a little bit to make an egg less version to satisfy the entire family. But the timing was perfect - we had a impromptu planned picnic potluck at the park this evening and these muffins found a few friends to please.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with liners or use a no stick spray on the pan. This actually yielded about 18 muffins for me - since they were a smaller size muffin. So, keep a few extra liners ready.

Take about 21/4 cups of All purpose flour. For a healthier and grainier texture, you can add 2 cups of flour and 1/4 cups of rolled oats if you'd like.
Add 3/4 cups of brown sugar. I accidentally added 1/2 cup of white sugar first and then remembered the recipe called for brown sugar - so I added another 1/2 cup of brown sugar - and so I had a total of about 1 cup sugar.
Add the 1/4 tsp of salt and instead of the cinnamon, I added a pinch of cardamom powder on to the dry mix.
Finally add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp baking soda.
Mix everything well together and set aside.

Now, to make the wet mix, mash up a couple of ripe bananas and add to a mixing bowl.
Melt 1 stick of butter and when the butter is in room temperature, add it to the bananas

Add a few drops of Pure Vanilla extract.

Now instead of the eggs, here's where we'll add a good substitute to provide the moistness required - Applesauce.

Add the one cup of applesauce and mix well with the other wet ingredients.

Chop up a few strawberries into small pieces - about 1 cup of chopped strawberries. Thankfully, we might still get fresh strawberries for a few more weeks.

Mix the chopped strawberries with a spoon of flour and set aside. This flour helps the strawberries from sinking to the bottom of the muffins.

 Next comes getting the batter ready. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry flour mix.

Add the strawberries on top.

Gently using a spatula, fold in the wet mix and dry mix. Don't beat too hard - just mix until well combined.

I felt the batter was too thick and did not want dry muffins, and hence added about 1/4 cup of warm milk to the batter and gently mixed that in. And I was thankful I did this - the muffins were perfectly moist and you could not tell that they were egg less.

Scoop up the batter into the lined muffin pan. Give it a tap or two on the counter to release a few big air bubbles. And send it on its way to its sauna bath in the oven.

My muffins on the top are done - and I still had batter for more muffins - so sent another batch in for its hot bath.

And just how happy one is when their muffins come out so perfect from the oven!! I wish you can see what a huge smile I have on my face.

What are you waiting for - bake up some eggless muffins - I won't say its easy as pie - it actually is easier than pie.

You can pick this one if you want.

Or this one.

I want them all.

Enjoy. Peace out!

Banana Pecan Muffins

Here's a little history between Bananas and Me.

I hate them. Plain hate. No love. Only hate. My immediate and my extended family including aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors everyone knows this fact. When I was getting married, my cousins teased me that I will have to eat a piece of banana during the ceremony. I almost skipped my own wedding. I would not even touch a banana - I mean touch like literally put my fingers on them. No. I would not do that till about 5 years back.

Then, my daughter was born. And when she was 6 months old, I started to feed her bananas. And that was the only thing she loved most at that age. So, every morning her breakfast was a banana. I had to hold the banana in my hand, peel it and smash it with my own fingers and feed her. Arrgh.. I used to hold it away from my body so that I don't smell it by mistake!

5 years and many many bananas later, I'm ok with them staying on my counter top.

And then yesterday happened.

There were about 4 overriped bananas on the counter and it was one of those few minutes when my mind had no control over my tongue and my tongue spitted out these words - "Maybe I'll make banana nut muffins using these ripe bananas instead of throwing them" - What? What? Are you insane...but it was too late. The whole family had heard what I spoke - now, there's no going back. Damn! Damn!

And so then I did the one thing I do best - Googled. The first hit was a recipe that Tyler Florence had made on Food TV. The recipe seemed simple and it used Pecans. I had Pecans at home and did not have Walnuts which is usually used to make Banana Nut muffins. So, perfect - let me try this.

So I started to get the ingredients out and started the whole muffin making process. My mother in law was a little sad that I was going to use eggs in them as they don't eat eggs. So, at the spur of the moment I decided I will make another set of eggless muffins! That story is my next post.

And so here come the Banana Pecan Muffins. If you've read my story this far, don't miss to read what happened in the end after the muffins were done.

Here is the original Tyler Florence Recipe.

All ingredients assembled here - you can see how ripe the bananas were - the black culprits! I melted the butter in a bowl before I started.

Mix all the dry ingredients together and set aside. Pre heat your oven to 375 degrees.

All Purpose Flour - 2 cups

1 1/2 tsp baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt.

 

Get your little sous chef to line the muffin pans with paper liners. Tell them they have to earn their muffins! 

 

In a small bowl or a flat plate, mash two of the ripe bananas with a fork. Press them down completely. Set aside.

 

In a mixing bowl, add the other 2 ripe bananas and add 1 cup of brown sugar. Beat it all well. This step gave me intense saddistic pleasure - I was beating the hell out of the my arch enemy! Beat it well for about 3 mins - Oh yeah!

 

Now, to the beaten mixture, add the melted butter (3/4 cup - 1 1/2 sticks), add 2 eggs, and a tsp of vanilla extract. You can also add Almond extract if you like the flavor. 

 

Beat it all together well until combined.

 

When the wet mixture is well combined, add the dry flour mix to this a little at a time and keep mixing.

 

Wet and dry ...yin and yang.. Do not beat this too much. Just enough to combine well.

 

When all are combined together, it looks like this.

 

Now, add the two bananas that you pressed down with a fork in here and add about 1 cup of pecans.  Just use a spatula and fold together well until combined.

 

Fill the paper lined muffin tray with the batter. Fill 3/4 of the paper cups.

 

When all the cups are filled, just hold the tray and give it a couple of smacks on the counter to let out the air bubbles. Yeah...some more smacking. Oh..I actually like doing this!

 

Bake it in the pre heated oven for about 15- 18 mins or until they pass the toothpick test.

 

There they are - nice and golden!

 

A close up shot of one.

 

This one wants its portrait published too!  It cried for attention. Poor thing.

 

Look at me all open..

 

Now, look at me closely...what can you see??

 

Here is the end of the story I promised before.

So, these things came out of the oven. You know when you are working with butter and sugar and pecans...your mind is very relaxed. When these things bake and you just remove them out of the oven, the wafting smell of the butter and sugar and everything else just surrounds you. Making your brain even more weaker.

And then I cut it open to take a picture. That small little cloud of hot flavorful steam hit my face - my brain died for a few mins and then I did the unthinkable - I picked up a piece and put it in my mouth. NOOOO...still brain dead - I picked up the other piece and put it in my mouth. That's it - it was the end of my dignity. I had no shame. I was messed with by a banana. A damn yellow and black banana. Crap! I even tried to brush, floss and clean my tongue - but nothing worked. Nothing I do ever could turn back time. I have to give in. Its a sad day for me. A happy day for a banana!

Good bye, my friends. The old Anu is gone - here is a new one that has eaten a banana!