Do You Know the Muffin Man?

I sat down to do this blog and discovered I'd somehow managed to not blog all of September. So much for resolve! I have the makings of several blogs that I kept meaning to get to... half credit, I suppose.

In the last six weeks everyone in the family has started school. Except me. Kiddo's in first grade, Junior started preschool, and hubby's taking night classes for his A.S. In the midst of that we had a brush with the flu, Kiddo had an ear infection, and I had my 25 year old crown removed for replacement. I've been busy at work too, as EQII released another game update and I had one staffer in the hospital for a week.

I really don't know how families with two working parents do it. I've been running everywhere for doctor's appointments, school orientations, regular errands, and getting kids to and from school (we're too close to Kiddo's school for a bus and Junior's preschool is across town). If I had a regular job I would have missed at least a quarter of it in the last month and I'd be paying for before-and-after-school care for the kids. Just trying to schedule appointments so no one misses school and I can pick everyone up on time requires a high level of organization.

This week my extra task is snacks for Jackie's preschool. We were told at the beginning of the year that parents would take turns week-by-week. So far Miss Jeannie, Jackie's main teacher, has taken all the weeks. I get the first parent's turn.

When I picked Jackie up yesterday they were having popcorn and fruit ring cereal for snack. Which is fine, I guess, the cereal's fortified and popcorn is a great snack, but I can't do anything by halves. I whipped out all my healthy fun kid snack recipes - chocolate zucchini bread, oatmeal applesauce cookies, banana blueberry muffins, and pumpkin cookies. I'll be baking all weekend!

I only had four recipes so I went looking. One thing I've got excess of is dates, which have been in our last few TEFAP boxes. I was thinking to make the Joy of Cooking basic muffin recipe and just fold chopped dates in, but then I found this recipe. The only thing I had to buy was an orange for the zest. The original recipe is linked; what I actually used is below.

Orange Date Muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
1/3 cup orange juice
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons oil
2/3 cup chopped dates

Makes 12 muffins (I tripled the recipe and it came out fine)

To get orange zest, take a fine grater to the skin of a thick skinned orange (try to avoid the white part). This will give your muffins a lovely fragrance and taste. The original recipe also had walnuts, but I've never liked nuts in my baked goods.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). Place rack in the middle of the oven. Prepare a muffin tin by coating the cups with non-stick spray or use paper muffin cups.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, and orange zest. In a separate bowl, mix together the orange juice, buttermilk, egg, vanilla extract, and melted and cooled butter. Add the milk and egg mixture to the flour mixture. Stir just until combined. Fold in the dates. Do not over mix the batter or the muffins will be tough when baked.

Evenly divide the mixture among the 12 muffins cups and sprinkle each muffin with a little sugar, if desired. Place in the oven and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until very lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place on a wire rack to cool.

Buttermilk substitutions are worth mentioning again. Buttermilk not only gives baking good flavor, but helps the raising. You can use plain yogurt in place of buttermilk, or you can make your own by adding 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice to one cup of milk and letting it stand for 10 minutes. I like to use buttermilk powder, which you add to the dry ingredients and then add the water you'd reconstitute it with to the wet ingredients.

By the way, you can fit 12 muffins in a gallon zip-close bag. Get as much air out as possible and you can freeze them. Just be sure they are completely cool before you do, or the condensation in the bag will make them a bit mushy when they thaw.

Coming soon: another product review, and the banana bread recipe that won me several blue ribbons as a kid.

Sweet Potato Pie

One of the commodities we've been getting in our TEFAP boxes is canned sweet potatoes. The problem is, my family doesn't like sweet potatoes one bit. Not as fries, mashed, candied, or with marshmallows on top. I firmly believe that if we're broke enough to be receiving TEFAP, we should not let any of it go to waste, so I set out to discover some way my family would eat them.

The answer was pretty obvious when I stumbled over it: pie.

There are lots of recipes for traditional sweet potato pie. As usual I'm looking for recipes that don't require I buy anything special. Pie crust ("short crust" to my friend Emily) is easy, I've always got that stuff and other basic baking needs. I found a lot of recipes that use sour cream or evaporated milk, which I don't keep around. The one I settled on uses buttermilk.

I keep buttermilk powder around when I can afford it, but you can make a buttermilk substitute by adding one tablespoon of vinegar to a scant cup of milk ("scant" means "not quite the whole measure" - just take a tablespoon of milk out before you add the vinegar.) This gives the properties of buttermilk for baking, and the taste is close. It will clump and look soured when you add the vinegar, which is what you want.

The recipes I found also use pie crust or graham cracker crust interchangeably. Graham cracker crust is really simple to make if you don't want to muck with rolling out dough. It's just crushed graham crackers and butter.

Graham Cracker Crust

6 Tbsp butter or margarine
About 24 graham crackers, crushed to make 1 1/2 cups of crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
Cinnamon, allspice, or nutmeg (optional)

Crush the graham crackers by putting them in sealable bag and rolling them until they're crumbs. A food processor or blender also works well.

In a small saucepan or the microwave, melt 6 tablespoons of butter. Measure 1 1/2 cups of graham cracker crumbs into a medium bowl. Add 1/4 cup of sugar to the graham crackers. Add the melted butter. Add a little cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice to the crumbs for a spiced flavor. Stir or blend together with your hands. Press into the pie plate or other pan. To pre-bake the pie crust, bake for 8 to 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree F. oven.

Most of the recipes I found used fresh baked and mashed sweet potatoes, and what I have are canned in syrup. They mash very well, and the syrup just means a sweeter pie. The recipe I started with is from bakingbites.com, and here's what I ended up with. If you're using buttermilk powder, follow the directions on the can for adding liquid and the powder:

Buttermilk Sweet Potato Pie

1 15 ounce can of sweet potatoes, drained
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 Tbsp flour
1 9 or 10 inch pre-baked pie crust

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In a blender or food processor, blend the sweet potatoes and buttermilk to a smooth puree. Add all ingredients except flour and blend smooth. Add flour and pulse the blender until it's just incorporated (don't over blend, it will make the pie tough).

Place the pie crust on a baking sheet and place baking sheet on the middle rack of a preheated oven. Pour filling into pie crust (it is thin enough that it will slosh if you put it in the pie crust and attempt to carry it over to the oven).

Bake for 50-55 minutes, until pie is set and jiggles only very slightly when the pan is bumped. You may want to put a crust guard (foil works) on the exposed pie crust to keep it from burning.

Cool on a wire rack to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight, before serving.

This is close enough to pumpkin pie that the kids don't notice the difference! A little whipped cream dresses it up.


For the pie pictured here I used a Wal-Mart "Great Value" pre-fab pie crust. I won't be buying that particular crust again. The first shrank up so bad on baking that what I had was a thick tart crust with barely any sides. So I rolled out the second crust a bit and left it laid over the edges of the pie pan for shrinkage, and it didn't shrink. It did, however, bubble up badly on baking (despite pricking it), which has left some shallow spots in the pie.

The good news is the kids don't care too much, they just like pie. And there's nothing wrong here that sufficient application of whipped cream won't fix.

UPDATE:
I made this pie today and remembered to take a picture of a pretty one. I've also tweaked the recipe a little.

The pie won't stay puffy, by the way. Custard pies will "fall" as they cool.