Muffin mania

I've been trying to get going on my bread challenge, so to that end, I made a few muffins this week from the BH&G cookbook.

First up was a batch of honey wheat muffins for my coworkers on Friday. They were really simple - amazingly simple, actually - so much so that I really think I can integrate muffins as a regular player in my kitchen.

With muffins, you basically mix all wet ingredients and all dry ingredients separately, then mix it all together with a spoon. No hand mixer required, no sifting required, no alternating ingredients required. Just dump it in.

In the case of honey wheat muffins, the dry ingredients were flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt. The wet ingredients were an egg, oil, honey, and lemon zest.


These came out SUPER soft. I still have a little cinnamon honey butter left over from last week, so I spread a little on mine, and it was heavenly.

Tonight I made "basic muffins," but in BH&G, the basic muffin recipe pales in comparison to the delicious-sounding variations of the recipe. The basic muffin recipe is just flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, with wet ingredients of milk, egg, and oil.

So I made a full batch of basic muffins, then split the batch in half and added mix-ins to make two variations. One set was date-nut muffins, with chopped dates and walnuts mixed in.


The other was apple raisin muffins, with shredded apple, raisins, and cinnamon mixed in.


I'm bringing these to Grandma Smith's house for Mother's Day tomorrow, where my mom and Aunt Jan will be for brunch. I'm excited to see how they taste! I am also interested to try other muffin recipe variations in the future, including blueberry, cranberry, cheese, and more. Mmmmmuffins!