Sunday, December 24, 2006

toaster oven blueberry muffins

As I've mentioned before, I'm without a proper kitchen for the time being while my house is under renovation. My cooking is limited to a hotplate, electric kettle, crockpot, microwave, and our most recent addition, which I can't believe I ever lived without, the toaster oven. The toaster oven has been wonderful. We got a model that has a bowed front and back allowing it to accommodate round things like pies and pizza, and we've also used it to bake scones and cupcakes, and even baked teriyaki tofu sticks (addictive). The only drawback is that I need to cut recipes down to what will fit in the oven, so for cupcakes, cookies and such it's what fits on the tiny baking sheet that came with it or a 6-well muffin tin.

This weekend I was looking for options for breakfast foods for special occasions. Our usual special occasion breakfast of scrambled tofu with soysage and English muffins has gotten a little tired, and I wanted something new. I decided I wanted to make blueberry muffins but I had to cut the recipe in half to make it fit. I suppose an alternative would be to mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately and then stick half of each in containers in the fridge/freezer for another time, but I decided to just go ahead and make the smaller batch. The full recipe is at the bottom.

Blueberry Muffuns - a muffin that errs on the side of sweet :)

dry ingredients

1 c all-purpose flour
3 T sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

wet ingredients

2 T +2 tsp oil (canola or other light flavored oil)
3/8 c (equivalent to 1/4 c + 2 T) soy creamer (or soy milk)
1/2 a 6 oz container of vanilla soy yogurt

additions
1/2 c frozen blueberries (or other fruit)

Makes 6 muffins.
Set the toaster oven to 400 F and preheat while you mix batter.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl and create a well in the center. Add the wet ingredients and fold to combine, add the blueberries and immediately pour into a paper or foil lined muffin pan and bake for 18-22 minutes.

If you have access to a full-sized oven the doubled recipe (makes 12 muffins) is much easier to measure, the instructions are the same, but the ingredients are as follows:

dry ingredients

2 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

wet ingredients

1/3 c oil (canola or other light flavored oil)
3/4 c soy creamer (or soy milk)
6 oz container of vanilla soy yogurt

additions
1 c frozen blueberries (or other fruit)