Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

"Gee," I thought, "We sure have an awful lot of peanut butter!"  We usually do.  Between WIC and TEFAP we're buried in peanut butter.  In fact, that's why I make my own jams and jellies (that, and it's fun to make jam!).  But we had a serious overstock.  Meanwhile I've been making and freezing muffins for when it's my turn for snacks at Junior's preschool.  So I thought "Why not peanut butter muffins?"  Then I remembered that as a kid I'd make jelly muffins from Bisquick, and figured peanut butter and jelly muffins would be a great kid treat.  (I'm setting aside extra banana muffins for kids with nut sensitivities).

The original recipe is from Jif.  I doubled it and got 30 nice muffins!  Doubling your recipe will use exactly one 16 oz jar of peanut butter, which is convenient.  Peanut butter is a pain to measure.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup jam or jelly

Heat oven to 375ºF. Spray muffin pan with no-stick cooking spray. Stir together flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl.

In a large bowl combine milk, eggs, cup sugar, peanut butter and oil.  Blend on low speed of electric mixer until smooth and creamy.  Add dry ingredients and combine until just moistened. Do not over beat.

Fill prepared muffin cups evenly with half of the batter. Place 2 level teaspoons jam or preserves in the center of each muffin. Evenly divide remaining batter between muffin cups. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar. Bake 18 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool in pan 5 minutes. 

The catch to these is the jelly is going to get VERY hot and goosh out while cooking.  Just after you take them out of the oven run a sharp knife around the muffins where jelly has escaped to keep the muffin from gluing to the pan.  The pan will be a pain to clean, so get it in hot soapy water immediately!

Be sure to let them cool well before giving them to kids.  That jelly is hot!

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins

I was cleaning out my pantry yesterday.  I have to do it now and then, and look at the weath of canned goods getting dusty and the odd baking ingredients I don't use often.  What I discovered is that I once again, thanks to TEFAP, have a wealth of applesauce and oatmeal.  They also gave us a gallon of frozen blueberries.  It seemed like muffin time to me!

I looked at several recipes and in the end combined one from Recipezaar and one from Joy the Baker. These are whole grain, low fat, and quite tasty.  Recipezaar's includes a tasty crumble topping that I didn't use, because these will be frozen for preschool snacks this fall.  Joy's incorporated the blueberries.  I also doubled the recipe, as those little kids can eat a lot of muffins!

Oatmeal Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned)
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 egg white

Heat oven to 400. Line 12 medium muffin tins with papercups.

Combine oats, flour, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. Add applesauce, milk, brown sugar, oil and egg white. Mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.  Add blueberries and mix only until distributed.  Fill muffin cups almost full.

Bake 20-22 minutes until deep golden brown.

Banana Bread

The kids love muffins. I love banana bread! Making a week of snacks for Junior's preschool class has me getting out all kinds of recipes, including this one. The original recipe is from my faithful 2nd edition Joy of Cooking. I took blue ribbons at the fair with it as a kid, and you can tell it's a favorite recipe because the cookbook opens right to it and there's batter splats on the page!

The trick to awesome banana flavor in banana bread is to really let the bananas go. They should be darn near black and not quite liquid. Not only does it crank the flavor up, but it adds tons of moisture. This recipe is naturally low-sugar and low-fat because of that.

If you're planning to make banana bread, watch at the grocery for mark-down bananas. Around here they run 20 to 30 cents a pound less, and you want them all mushy anyway.

Quick Banana Bread

1 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cups shortening
2/3 cups sugar
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups ripe banana pulp

Optional additions:
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup blueberries
1/2 cup chopped nuts

This works best if all ingredients are room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl blend shortening, sugar, and lemon rind until creamy. Add eggs and banana to the sugar mixture.

Add the sifted ingredients in about three parts to the sugar mixture, beating the batter after each addition until smooth. Fold in any nuts or other goodies.

Place the batter in a greased bread pan and bake for one hour or until done. For muffins, bake 15-20 minutes. Makes one loaf or 12 muffins.

Usually with muffins or quick breads you want to mix them as little as possible or they get tough, but that's not true with this recipe, mix it very thoroughly. If the bread will last in your house, wait until it's completely cool before cutting - the steam escaping will make it go stale faster. That's not usually a problem around here.

For the kiddies I made blueberry banana muffins!

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.