Maple Oatmeal Mustard Muffins

I really wanted these maple oatmeal mustard muffins to be cupcakes. I even thought about calling them cupcakes, but in the interest of blog integrity, I must admit that they were muffins. The problem, you see, was the white whole wheat flour. I'd never used white whole wheat flour before, but I'd heard rumors that it tasted just like white flour while retaining the health value of whole wheat. Not true. Even though only half of the flour I used was white whole wheat flour (the other half was all-purpose), these wannabe cupcakes tasted like whole wheat muffins.

Despite the fact that muffins are the geeky friend of the hipster cupcake, these muffins have nothing to be ashamed of. They have the tender sweetness of maple, the in-your-face texture of oatmeal, and a surprise sassy kick from the mustard. They were a huge hit with my moms' group (winning out over a chocolate cupcake that I made for a Scharffen Berger contest and Panettone Cupcakes).

The Maple Oatmeal Mustard Muffin Recipe


Makes 16 muffins

First, make an oatmeal mixture:

• 1 1/2 C rolled oats
• 1/2 C maple sugar
• 1 t cinnamon
• 2 T whole mustard seeds
• 6 T unsalted butter, melted

1. Mix together oats, maple sugar, cinnamon, and mustard seed.
2. Mix in melted butter and stir well.
3. Set aside.

Then, make the cake batter, combine with the oatmeal mixture, and bake:

• 1 C white whole wheat flour (you could use regular whole wheat or simply all-purpose)
• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 C maple syrup
• 1/2 C sunflower oil (you could use canola oil)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 C Greek yogurt (you could use plain yogurt)
• 1 t vanilla bean paste (you could use vanilla extract)
• 4 t whole grain mustard

1. In a large bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, beat maple syrup, oil, and eggs until well blended.
3. Stir in yogurt, vanilla, and mustard.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients all at once, and mix by hand until evenly combined.
5. Stir in oatmeal mixture.
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
7. Bake at 350 F for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out dry.

Last, top with a maple glaze:

• 1/3 C powdered sugar
• 3 T maple syrup
  

1. Mix powdered sugar and maple syrup and spread on cooled muffins.
   

Credits

• I got the idea of a maple oatmeal mustard cupcake from a salad dressing recipe that I found on A Bolder Table.
• I based the cake recipe on a maple pecan cake from Kitchen Sketches.
• Kitchen Sketches adapted the cake recipe from The Natural Health Cookbook.

Polenta Cupcakes Morphed Into Corn Muffins - A Story with a Moral

Polenta cupcakes seemed like a good idea. My Taste & Create partner this month, My Kitchen Treasures, had a recipe for a date, ricotta, and polenta cake that sounded like it would be a winner in cupcake form. I decided that I would give it a try using mangoes instead of dates.

First, I made some polenta.

And there - right there in the very first step - is where I went wrong.

You see, when the recipe called for polenta, it was referring to uncooked polenta (essentially corn meal), not the cooked, fluffy stuff that I posted about last week - oops!

Fact: Almost all cupcake recipes take about 20 minutes to bake.
Fact: My polenta cupcakes were still raw on the inside at 45 minutes in the oven. Cooked polenta = too much moisture.

But Then, The Miracle Happened

After one hour in the oven, I had basically given up on my poor polenta cupcakes and was about to throw them all in the trash when Jonathan tried one and noted that it tasted like a corn muffin. I had a bite and had to agree. They were sweeter than a typical corn muffin and moist rather than crumbly, but if I thought of them as corn muffins, not cupcakes, they were rather tasty. Rather than trashing them or frosting them, I left them naked, called them corn muffins, and served them with the main course to our dinner guests.

The Verdict: Our guests loved them! They even went back for seconds.

When I told our friends the story and asked whether the recipe was good enough to post on the blog, they said, "Definitely."

The Moral of the Story

Don't give up just because something doesn't go the way you had planned; you might just discover something new and exciting!

The "Corn Muffin" Recipe


As I said above, this recipe is a modification of the date, ricotta, and polenta cake from My Kitchen Treasures. I encourage you to check out the recipe in its original form and give that a try as well.

Makes about 15 muffins

For The Muffins

• 2 C flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 2/3 C cooked polenta
• 1 C sugar
• 1 1/4 C ricotta cheese
• 1/2 C butter, room temperature
• 3/4 C water
• 1 C finely chopped mango

For The Filling

• 1 C ricotta cheese
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 T powdered sugar

1. Combine flour, baking powder, polenta, sugar, cheese, butter and the water in large bowl, and beat on low speed with a electric mixer until combined.
2. Fold in mango.
3. Fill cupcake liners half full with batter.
4. In a small bowl, mix all filling ingredients.
5. Spread a thin layer of filling over each filled muffin.
6. Top off each muffin with remaining batter until they are all 3/4 full.
7. Bake at 375 F for about one hour.
   

About the Plates

The plates you see in these photos were a gift from Marx Foods. They are disposable palm leaf plates.

According to the info on Marx's website:

These environmentally friendly small hexagonal palm plates are made from a natural, renewable, and biodegradable raw material. Naturally discarded sheaths of the leaves of the Adaka palm tree, which in the course of its biological life cycle, dry, fall and regenerate, are collected. No trees are cut down. The palm sheaths are then cleaned in fresh spring water and molded into bowls.

Palm leaf plates are leak proof and able to withstand hot and cold temperatures without getting soggy or flimsy. They are smaller than our full sized Hexagonal Palm Leaf Plates and thus perfect for salads and side dishes.

Even though these are disposable plates, each durable piece is unique with an attractive wood pattern finish that fits into both rustic and elegant events.

I was very impressed with the quality of the plates. They were super thick! Also, aside from the fact that they are environmentally friendly, they are gorgeous - perhaps even too gorgeous to throw out. The good news is that we didn't have to throw them out!

Even though the palm plates were billed as disposable, there is no reason that you have to trash them after one use. We used them for the muffins and for some greasy pizza and we were still able to rinse them off, let them dry, and use them again. I think we should be able to get many more uses out of them before having to pitch them. We did, however, give up one of our plates because a friend wanted to feed it to her compost worms and see how they liked it. I haven't heard the report on how that went yet.

The plates are available for sale on the Marx Foods website.

Apple Banana Cupcakes Topped with Sweet Ricotta: Some Things are Better Naked

One of my favorite comfort foods is pasta (shells work well or wagon wheels) with cottage cheese, cinnamon, brown sugar, and golden raisins. It's basically an easy version of my mom's noodle pudding which is still pretty easy but takes longer to make.

I could be making a stretch here since this recipe doesn't even involve cottage cheese, but I think if my sweet cottage cheese with raisins sounds nasty to you then you most likely won't enjoy the sweet ricotta topping on these cupcakes. This is definitely a cupcake for a small select subset of the population. Not a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Not a wedding contender.

To be even more frank, no one liked the topping except for me and even I thought the topping would have been better on a cracker than on these cupcakes.

The cake portion of these cupcakes however, is a winner. I'd recommend you just make them naked. No frosting necassary for these flavorful treats. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to call them cupcakes. They tasted like a moist delicious banana bread. I might actually consider making them in bread form for a brunch.

I could barely taste the apples. Then again, the groom said he could barley taste the bananas. That was a mystery to me. It's actually always a mystery to me what he will think. I finally thought I had him pegged. I put my guess at his comments on a piece of paper and folded it up prior to his tasting to see if I could guess it correctly. Nope. I guess if I could predict what everyone would think there would be no point in having tastings.

The Details

The Cake

The cake recipe was again from all recipes.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Apple-Banana-Cupcakes/Detail.aspx

I used butter and oil instead of shortening as one of the commenters had suggested. I also used crazy ripe (liquidy) bananas and golden delicious apples. Whole Foods didn't carry organic goldens. I was bummed about that, but I really wanted to use that apple type so I went for it anyway. They are perfect for baking.

To make up for the lack of organic apples, this was the first time I used organic sugar. I'd been putting off making that switch because I use so much sugar and the organic sugar comes in much smaller bags and is much more expensive. What I learned though is that organic sugar is actually a different product from conventional sugar. It is actually evaporated cane juice. I had no idea.

According to World's Healthiest Foods, "While both sweeteners are made from sugar cane, evaporated cane juice does not undergo the same degree of processing that refined sugar does. Therefore, unlike refined sugar, it retains more of the nutrients found in sugar cane. "

The same applies to the organic powdered sugar which I've been using for a while now. I also read about how it's a darker color which explains why my icings are never quite as white as I've seen in some pictures.

The Topping

For the topping, I made my own ricotta cheese per the instructions in my blog post on cheese. I used a whole gallon of milk. I then added about 1 cup of powdered sugar and 1/4 cup of butter. At that point, I decided it was sweet enough. Probably because it tasted just like the cottage on pasta that I love but with a chunky play-dough kind of texture.

No need for piping here. I just piled the cheese on top of the cupcakes and sculpted it into a nice shape.

Lastly, I dusted each cupcake with cinnamon.

Anyone have a really good technique for dusting something on a cupcake? I used a mini sifter which worked well, but it was still hard to control exactly how much landed on each cupcake at once.