Tag Archives: baking

Item #12: Bake Muffins

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I just wrote “bake muffins” on my to-do list.

maybe not a metaphor for my list making, but probably totally a metaphor for my list making

maybe not a metaphor for my list making, but probably totally a metaphor for my list making

I’m not saying I make fabulous muffins. I enjoy baking, my kids like muffins. And I’ve made dozens of recipes over the past six years or so, some much better than others.

So making muffins is not a big deal. It’s not “overturn landmark court case” or “pay bills.” It’s not “submit proposal” or “email President for advice on major issue.”

It’s just muffins.

But I’ve been meaning to make muffins for about a year. Haven’t remembered.

Let me repeat that so I can bask in my ludicrousness: I can’t remember to ask my kids to measure some flour and sugar with me. For a year. Despite intention, despite planning.

I just plain ol’ forget.

I’ve gotten to the point where I have to jot down reminders to call my friends. And to plan the weekend. And to mail a package that’s been on my desk for two weeks.

Two weeks. And I have to write a note to remember it. Sitting right there, looking at me, and I won’t remember unless it’s on the list.

Maybe I have list dependency. Maybe I need more sleep. Maybe I have early onset something. Maybe I have childbirth-onset something.

Or maybe I refuse. Maybe deep down I know there are perfectly good muffins at the store, and I have other stuff to do without spending 20 minutes sifting and whisking. And cleaning up that which resisted sifting or whisking.

Regardless of the cause, it seems that it might be a cry for help, that “bake muffins” on my list.

So tomorrow I’ll make muffins with my kids. Or by myself, after they go to sleep. Or not at all because who really needs muffins, anyway?

Anything lingering and lingering and lingering on your list? Does it remain there because you forget or because you passive aggressively forget?

Six-Minute Chocolate and Blackberry Cake

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I premeasured during nap time, and Peanut made the following. Lovely, if a bit gooey.

(Original source: Moosewood Cooks at Home, from my dear godmother. Called the Six-Minute Chocolate Cake, it’s quick to mix, doesn’t use lots of bowls, and transforms well into cupcakes.)

Cake:
1.5C unbleached all-purpose flour
.33 C sweetened cocoa (we prefer Scharffen Berger because it’s local, I prefer the 40s-style graffics, and Peanut likes the girl on the label)
1t baking soda
.5t salt
1C evaporated, granulated cane juice, MINUS 2T
1 stick organic unsalted butter, melted but not hot
.25C organic Gravenstein cinnamon apple sauce
1C cold decaf, preferably French press (for the silt)
2t pure vanilla extract
2T vinegar
2 scoops vanilla whey protein powder (optional. if you skip this, add the 2T of sugar back into the recipe)
1.25C frozen organic unsweetened blackberries (optional)

Glaze:
1 small jar organic raspberry preserves
.25C sweetened cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 375F
Sift together flour, cocoa, soda, salt, sugar, and protein into cast-iron dutch oven. In a 2-cup measuring cup, measure and mix together the butter, applesauce, coffee, and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients and blackberries into the dutch oven and mix with fork. When the batter is smooth, add the vinegar and stir quickly just until the whitish swirls of acid+base is evenly distributed. Bake for approx. 30 minutes. Set the cake aside to cool.

We are anti-frosting. There, I said it. I don’t like the cloying, pastiness of frosting. Sorry. I know that makes me anathema to most bakers. But we LOVE us some jam. And I wanted chocolate. So for the glaze:
Put jar of preserves into small saucepan. Do not turn on burner, but put saucepan on top of baking stove. Add cocoa and mash together. Let the ambient heat smooth it out and stir again after cake comes out of oven. Put the glaze on a large platter, and upend the cake onto it. Makes a raspbery, blackberry, cocoa upside down chocolate cake for those with no time to make icing look good.