This week I’m doing something a little different from the usual recipe-for-company-or-a-crowd. Instead, I’m writing on how to adapt a specific recipe with some general principles thrown in. The gorgeous muffins pictured above were made this week for a regular breakfast for just us three (yes, I do that sort of thing–no Cheerios around here–but I’m often very lazy about dinner). The original recipe is from Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise, first published in 1997. I had read about the book and thought it sounded so interesting that I asked for it to be my Christmas present that year, which it was. And I’ve enjoyed reading it (I love to read cookbooks, weird as that sounds) and looking at the gorgeous photos, of course, but I’ve found the recipes I’ve tried to be, on the whole, mind-bogglingly complex and/or seriously weird. The original muffin recipe falls into both camps. So I didn’t make it for quite awhile, but Monday morning, for some reason, I decided to give it a shot. The recipe below is my revised version. In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not breaking any copyright laws by doing this. A list of ingredients cannot be copyrighted. Original content such as the wording of the directions and any commentary is considered creative work and belongs to the author, but believe me, those are strictly my own.
So first let me explain the changes I made. My purpose in writing this commentary is not to criticize this particular recipe per se but to give you the confidence to look at a recipe and say, “That will never work” or “I don’t have that ingredient but I do have this one” or “I don’t have to do it that way.” Recipes are not set in stone! You can often work with what you have, or simplify a step.
Here were the major problems I saw in Shirley Corriher’s recipe for “Good-for-You Apple Bran Muffins with Walnuts and Orange Zest”:
- A complicated procedure for toasting the nuts, which I simplified and streamlined to work within the overall recipe
- An insistence that you use oat bran as a main ingredient, something that’s not always readily available at the grocery store. I give several options for this ingredient.
- Calling for several fiddly ingredients, i.e., using two egg whites instead of a whole egg, the grated zest of two oranges but no orange juice, a small amount of nonfat dry milk, and, most egregiously, 3 tablespoons of crushed pineapple. What are you supposed to do with the rest of that can of pineapple? So, instead, I call for a whole egg instead of the two whites (so the recipe now simply calls for two eggs), make the orange zest and nonfat dry milk optional, and cut out the pineapple altogether, adding more grated apple.
- Calling for way too much salt and cinnamon–2 tsp. salt and a whole tablespoon of cinnamon. I can’t imagine how this would taste and refused to ruin a whole batch of muffins to find out. I cut the salt in half and the cinnamon by two-thirds, so now each is a reasonable one teaspoon. These are ingredients that have normal, usual amounts.
- Baking temperature way too high and baking time way too long. As in the previous point, I was completely unwilling to ruin my muffins by following the original directions. Normal baking temp for muffins is 400 degrees, sometimes lower, but certainly never 450 degrees, which is what the original recipe calls for, and certainly not for 20-25 minutes. I always check muffins at the 15-minute mark and find that 15-18 minutes is plenty.
- Calling for more sugar than necessary for a breakfast muffin. I cut the sugar by 1/3, from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup. They taste fine just with butter, and if you put a sweet ingredient on them (apple butter would be great), they really don’t need that extra sugar.
- Yielding 14 muffins instead of 12. One of these days I may try to re-jigger the recipe to yield 12, which is, of course, what a normal muffin pan holds. I’d have to figure out how to cut every ingredient so that it’s 6/7 of what it is now. Not an easy task! I’ve never seen a muffin recipe before that makes such a weird amount. You can’t just put extra batter into each of 12 muffin cups because they’ll overflow and spread out, making it almost impossible to remove them. So for now I’ve left the recipe as is, and since I own several muffin pans I just make the extra two in another pan. If you own just one, you can perhaps bake the extra batter in a little pie plate or in ramekins, if you own those. You could also try baking the extra two muffins after you’ve baked and removed the first 12, but muffin batter doesn’t keep well because the baking powder starts losing its oomph. If this weren’t such a good recipe, I’d never bother with all these tinkerings, but there it is.
Apple-Bran-Walnut Muffins
This is the tweaked version, and you'll see that there are still options for you to play with.
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups 1 1/2 cups oat or wheat bran, ground flaxseed, or whole-grain flaked hot cereal, or same amount of oatmeal ground up in blender until fairly fine
- 3/4 cup flour—all purpose or whole-wheat Whole wheat is better, of course!
- 1/3 cup nonfat dry milk This is totally optional—it will add extra protein.
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tsp . cinnamon
- 1 tsp . salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
Wet ingredients:
- 1 medium to large carrot, grated optional, use 1 large apple or 2 small ones below if not using carrot)
- 1 medium to large apple cored and coarsely shredded—not necessary to peel
- Zest of 2 oranges totally optional, or use several drops of orange oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk or 1 cup water and 1/4 cup buttermilk powder
- 1/4 cup oil anything but olive oil
Instructions
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Turn oven on to 400 degrees. Dump the walnuts onto a baking sheet and slide them into the oven to toast slightly while you're doing the rest of the prep. Set the timer for 10 minutes so you don't forget about them. Take them out and let them cool a bit before you chop them.
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Combine the dry ingredients, making sure that you get out any lumps in the brown sugar. If you're using the buttermilk powder, put it in here.
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Mix or whisk the wet ingredients, including the carrot and apple, together in another bowl, being sure to add the water here if you used the buttermilk powder. (You don't absolutely have to do this separate bowl step, but it's hard to get things mixed evenly if you don't.) As this point you should have your walnuts chopped, so mix those into the dry ingredients. Then pour the wet mixture on top of the dry ingredients and use a spatula to get everything combined. Be sure to get all the dry ingredients mixed in. It's surprisingly hard to do this, so make sure you're going all the way to the bottom of the bowl and scraping up. Stop as soon as you don't see any more streaks of the flour mixture. You'll notice that the batter starts getting bubbly as soon as you combine the two sets of ingredients. That's the baking powder starting to work, and you don't want to deflate things too much, so work with a light hand.
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Spray your muffin pans with baking spray or use foil or paper liners. Portion out the batter among the 14 cups. Bake until lightly browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean, 15-20 minutes. Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes before taking them out and putting on a cooling rack. Good warm or at room temp. Don't forget the butter!
