Carrot Muffins - #MuffinMonday

My five year old nephew is going through what I hope is a phase. It's an "I don't want anything to eat;  I just want to sit and watch YouTube" phase. After school, he comes to see me and if I let him, he will sit and watch YouTube for five hours. Occasionally, he will want to pause to "battle" and play with the dog. But otherwise, it's all about YouTube.

"AJ, it's time for dinner."
"No, I'm not ready yet."
"You have to eat."
"But then what will I do with my phone?"

It's a problem that we're working on. It occurred to me that I could get some food into him (healthy or not) if it was portable. Foods that he could eat while mindlessly watching unboxing videos. I decided to start with muffins. He likes cake so something that looks almost like a cupcake should be good, right? I went with carrot muffins because I had just made Food Lust People Love's carrot cake and saw that one of her carrot muffins recipes was pretty similar.

One afternoon, I quickly whipped them up before he got to the house. I was taking them out the oven when he walked through the door. My brother immediately grabbed a hot muffin out of the pan. I waited until the others cooled then presented a muffin to AJ. I wish the rest of this story was that he loved them and couldn't wait to have more and ever since then I have been baking hundreds of carrot muffins. I wish.

"Here, AJ"
"What is it?"
"A muffin."
"I don't like muffins."
"Have you ever had a muffin?"
"No."
"Then how do you know that you don't like them? Please try it." This was said while pushing a piece into his mouth.
He then spat it out and repeated, "I don't like muffins, I said!"

Sigh.

I assure you that the muffins are delicious! Don't let my picky nephew sway you. We all happily ate that batch and then I made more that we happily ate again without offering him any. Muffins are not the answer to the refusal to eat. I don't know what is. But hopefully, one day soon, I will find something that he will happily put down YouTube to eat.

Be sure to check out the other muffins for Muffin Monday below the recipe!

Carrot Muffins

(yield: 12 muffins, adapted from Food Lust People Love)

Ingredients

225 grams carrots (before peeling)

200 grams flour

35 grams oat flour

170 grams brown sugar

1 tablespoon grated ginger

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2/3 cup milk

Directions

Peel and chop the carrots then cook until fork tender. When the carrots are tender, mash and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a 12 cup muffin pan.

Whisk together flour, oat flour, brown sugar, ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate container, whisk together eggs, oil, and milk.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Gently stir together until just combined. Divide the batter among the muffin wells.

Bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• Apple Crisp Muffins from Making Miracles
• Candied Ginger and Oatmeal Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Carrot Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Double Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Golden Beet Muffins with Caramel and Chocolate from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Orange and Plum Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

Pumpkin Challah - #BreadBakers

Oy with the [pumpkins] already!


Please tell me that you get that reference. Please also tell me that I am not the only one frantically re-watching seven seasons of Gilmore Girls in order to be ready for The Revival in November. I'm not? Great! So which episode are you on? I just started and am on season 1 episode 13 and by my calculations, I am a day behind schedule. No worries though - we have a holiday weekend coming up and methinks I will spend more than a little time watching Gilmore Girls. Some persons will be gallivanting at the beach, I'll be curled up watching Gilmore Girls. I'll pretend to have a life after November 25. I'm not even ashamed to admit that I have already watched the series at least 4 times. The last time was at least 5 years ago though so it's definitely time for a refresher.To make this viewing a little different, I am also listening to the Gilmore Guys podcast. Two guys talking about the Gilmores. Quirky but fun.

I could go on and on about how much I am loving Netflix' promotion of the series. The Instagram photos are fun. But turning coffee shops across the US and Canada into Luke's diners? GENIUS. As I was saying, I won't dwell too much because I know that you already know these things. You feel the same way. You're binge watching with me too and counting down the days to November 25. I guess we can then move on to pumpkin challah.

Tired of pumpkin yet? I probably would be if I had hopped on the pumpkin bandwagon earlier. The theme for this month's Bundt Bakers is fall fruits and vegetables. There was definitely a lot to choose from but I still found myself gravitating towards pumpkin. I just have not used it often so it still feels new to me. I love braiding dough so I easily gravitated towards making a challah. It's definitely not traditional but it sure is delicious.

Pumpkin Challah

(Yield: 2 1lb loaves)

Ingredients

2 eggs

3/4 cup mashed pumpkin

1/2 cup melted shortening

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

4 cups flour

1/4 cup water

1 egg + a tablespoon of water for egg wash

Directions

Whisk together eggs, pumpkin, shortening, sugar,  yeast, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, and ginger until sugar is mostly dissolved. Add the flour and enough water to form a soft and slightly tacky dough. The dough should not be sticky. Knead until it's soft and cohesive then placed in a greased bowl to rise until doubled. The length of time will depend on the temperature of your kitchen.

When the dough has risen, divide the dough into two equal pieces. Divide each half into four equal pieces. Roll the pieces into logs about 12 inches long. Braid each set of four pieces into a round braid following the instructions here. Let rise until doubled.

Before the braids have doubled, preheat oven to 350 F. When the braids are ready, brush with egg wash then bake 25-30 minutes or until golden.

This month's for BreadBakers', we are baking bread with fall fruits and vegetables, for example, apples, grapes, pears, sweet potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, acorn squash, butternut squash etc. Our host of the month is Pavani at Cook's Hideout. Check out what our fellow bakers have come up with:

• Apple & Olive Oil Boulé from Food Above Gold
• Apple Cider Muffins from A Baker's House
• Apple, Pear and Persimmon Stuffed Brioche from A Shaggy Dough Story
• Baked Cauliflower Breadsticks from Sneha's Recipe
• Broccoli Burger Buns from Herbivore Cucina
• Brown Sugar Pumpkin Apple Bread from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Chilli and Cheddar Potato Rolls from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Easy Apple Banana Bread from Food Lust People Love
• Figs Quick Bread from Basic N Delicious
• Harvest Bread with Sweet Potato from Cook's Hideout
• Kartofel Khleb - Russian Potato Bread from Ruchik Randhap
• Potato Bread Rolls from Gayathri's Cook Spot
• Pumpkin Challah from Passion Kneaded
• Sauerkraut-Nut Bread from Palatable Pastime
• Savoury Potato Rose Rolls from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Spiced Apple Star Bread from Hostess At Heart

#BreadBakers is a group of bread loving bakers who get together once a month to bake bread with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely bread by following our Pinterest board right here. Links are also updated after each event on the #BreadBakers home page.
We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. If you are a food blogger and would like to join us, just send Stacy an email with your blog URL to foodlustpeoplelove@gmail.com.

Simple Chocolate Cake - #FoodieExtravaganza

It would take one of my most favourite things in the world to bring me out of Foodie Extravaganza hibernation - CHOCOLATE. This month we are celebrating chocolate! I don't even know how long it has been since I have participated. Too long. Not my intention at all but life happens, apparently.

As I type this (late Sunday night), I am listening to news reports about Hurricane Matthew. Up until last night, Matthew had us in its sight and was making a beeline towards us. Now, it has shifted slightly east and is heading towards Haiti instead. Bittersweet news. We are of course ecstatic that we won't have a category 4 hurricane passing directly over us but poor, poor Haiti. They can't handle such a major hurricane either. Matthew is still several hours away (roughly 415km away moving at 8km/h) but the outer bands are already causing major flooding in Kingston. Even though it seems we won't get a direct hit, Matthew is huge so we will still be heavily impacted.

I live on a flood-prone street so with talks of Matthew bringing over 25 inches of rain, we are gearing up to be very very wet. Cupboards, closets and drawers have been unpacked. Chairs and other knickknacks will be put on top of tables so the water doesn't push them over. The roof could go. The beloved mango tree could fall onto the house. Cars will be flooded.

But as Matthew rages out there, I will be calming my nerves with this chocolate cake. This is an extremely simple chocolate cake that I have baked several times over the years - I mainly make it as cupcakes when I want a small batch. I love it because it's egg free (can be vegan if you use non-dairy milk) so it makes dividing the ingredients very easy. It's also very moist. Once I used yogurt instead of milk + vinegar and it was even more moist.  In this case, I made a simple one layer cake. Instead of the usual vanilla, I used a little almond extract. A little coffee perks things up and if you're feeling fancy, splash in some rum too. Frost it or not. I didn't here but there's a batch of frosting in my freezer so I may just have to practise my piping while Matthew rages. Chocolate frosting is amazing. The one in my fridge is vanilla. It will work just as well too. OK, not just as well. Nothing works just as well as chocolate. Forgive me for saying that.

Edited to add: It's Wednesday and we are safe. No flooding here. In fact, it rained for no more than 10 minutes n Monday. Communities on the eastern end of the island had some flooding but for the most part, we are good. Extremely grateful for Matthew changing its course. But heartbroken for Haiti, Cuba and now the Bahamas.

Be sure to check out all the other chocolate recipes below. Lots of good stuff and it isn't all desserts. Thanks for hosting, Kathleen!

Simple Chocolate Cake

(adapted from Lauren's Latest)

Ingredients

1 cup milk plus 1 teaspoon vinegar
1 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup oil (I've used canola and melted coconut oils)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour an 8 inch baking pan.

Mix milk and vinegar and set aside until curdled. Whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder. In a separate container mix together oil, sugar, and vanilla. Alternate adding the dry ingredients with the milk. Mix until combined.

Pour into the prepared pan. Bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.


Foodie Extravaganza is a monthly food fest, where a group of bloggers all create and share a recipe around one of the monthly food 'holidays' as detailed in The Nibble. This month Kathleen from Fearlessly Creative Mammas is hosting and since chocolate day is October 28th, Chocolate is our theme. There are actually two other days that incorporate chocolate in October, the 14th is Chocolate Covered Insect Day and the 18th is Chocolate Cupcake day. We didn't want to get to specific though, so we will just say chocolate. Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board! Looking for our previous parties? Check them out HERE. Now, check out these great chocolate submissions!

• Holy Mole Pork Stew from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Triple Chocolate and Cream Trifle from Fearlessly Creative Mammas
• 2 Kiss Cupcakes from Sneha's Recipe
• Chocolate Lovers Dream Cake from Cookin and Craftin
• Kahlua Chocolate Cake from Making Miracles
• Queen Anne Squares from Tara's Multicultural Table
• Hot Fudge Cheesecake Brownies from Cookaholic Wife
• Nutty Chocolate Fudge from Basic N Delicious
• Chocolate Blintzes from Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Chocolate Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Slow Cooker Chicken Mole from Caroline's Cooking
• Simple Chocolate Cake from Passion Kneaded
• Chocolate Rugelach from Hardly a Goddess
• Crispy Chocolate Surprise Balls from G'Gina's Kitchenette
• Marshmallow Turtle Bars from Food Lust People Love
• Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins from Not Too Shabby Gabby