My kids are HUGE breakfast eaters. They will nibble on lunch and usually choke down dinner, but they will devour breakfast. They would sit at the table for an hour in the morning eating if I continued to shove food in front of them. They love yogurt, scrambled eggs, cereal, fruit, and cold pizza for breakfast. But they would live on any type of breakfast carbohydrate:pancakes, waffles, french toast, and especially muffins. There are a few muffin recipes in the book, but I chose this one because Peyton will ,and normally does, eat her weight in strawberries or "stra-la-las" as she likes to call them. Thus, Abby was given a chance to dazzle them with her muffins and restore my faith in this cook book.
I am bad mom. I just told you how much Peyton loves strawberries, and I refused to buy strawberries for this recipe. One pint was $4.00. Normally, I would think of nothing to spend that kind of money on something I know my kids will eat. However, seeing as though we have been severely disappointed by each recipe that comes from this book, I have a hard time buying $4 worth of strawbeerries that could very well end up in the trash. I read the substitution suggestions for these muffins, and they listed strawberry jelly as an alternate filling. SOLD!
Abby Cadabby's Disappearing Strawberry Muffins
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 teas baking powder
1/2 teas baking soda
1/4 teas salt
1 cup low fat plain yogurt
1/3 cup olive oil
1 lg egg
2 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line muffin tin with paper liners
2) In medium bowl, whisk together all dry ingredients.
3) In large bowl, use a rubber spatula to stir together the yogurt and oil. Then stir in the egg until well blended. Stir in flour mixture until just mixed. Fold in strawberries.
4) Fill muffin cups 2/3 full and bake 20-25 minutes
Kitchen Play by Play:
We started baking at 7:45am, and the muffins were in the oven by 7:58. I thought that was pretty damn quick considering they were made from scratch, the kids were helping me, and I had yet to have my first cup of coffee and ,therefore, was still a little out of it. The kids had a great time measuring out all the dry ingredients. They are getting to be pros at measuring and dumping the contents into the bowl. Since past meals have lacked flavor, I bought vanilla yogurt instead of plain yogurt. I figured it would give the muffins a little more flavor and sweetness. Once we added the wet ingredients to the bowl, I was immediately depressed. This batter looked like paste. I could have turned the bowl upside down, and the batter would not have moved. Any muffin, cake,or cupcake I have ever made has always been a liquid base; so I was not at all convinced that these muffins were going to bake correctly. Since we still had fresh blackberries, I split the cement, I mean batter, in half and folded the blackberries in one batch. I then used the other batter to fill the muffin cups 1/3 full, added some jelly, and topped them with more batter. I made six of each type of muffin. They went into the oven for 21 minutes.
The Verdict:Nicole: To my surprise, my muffin was actually very moist on the inside. That is all it had going for it. I chose a blackberry muffin, and when I took a bite with a berry in it, it was good because I could taste the berry. A non-berry bite was not good at all. It had absolutely no flavor and tasted like I was eating a bowl full of grain. To be honest, I'm getting a little sick of the cornmeal and whole wheat flour. Why are these needed in every recipe in this book? I understand that they are healthier alternatives for the kids, but it makes everything taste nasty. Abby was right. The muffin did disappear...right into the garbage. I give it a 2.
Paul: After his first bite, he looked at me and mouthed, " These are not so good." He thought they were dry and crumbly and the flavor was only where the strawberry jelly was. He gives it a 2.
Austin: He chose a strawberry jelly muffin and ate the whole thing. He said that, "abby makes good muffins." He asked for a second one but then got distracted by Peyton playing with his toys in the other room and left the table. We went to the zoo today, and on the way home he asked if we could have strawberry muffins as a snack when we got home. Apparently, my son and I have completely different ideas as to what good food tastes like because everything he has loved I have hated and vice versa. He said he gives it a 5 and was very confused as to why Paul and I gave it a 2.
Peyton: She took one bite of a blackberry muffin and then asked for yogurt. I tried to offer it to her again, and she just stared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. I think she would have picked all the blackberries out if I would have left it there, so maybe she would give it a 1.
**Though Austin has eaten and enjoyed two of the three meals from this cook book, everyone else in the family struggled to choke it down. Therefore, beginning tomorrow we will be exploring other recipes to include in this challenge. I'm thinking that I will probably pull out my Rachel Ray 30 minute meals cook book because I figure that if it only takes 30 minutes to cook, it should probably be relatively simple to prepare and kid friendly. We shall see.
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