In keeping with the carrot theme this weekend I took THIS carrot banana bread recipe and made mini muffins out of it. That mini muffin pan I bought in January has become a great investment. I make banana bread mini muffins in it all the time. My kiddo LOVES them and they only take 15 minutes to bake instead of the almost hour that banana bread takes. Plus I always feel inclined to smooth butter onto a fresh slice of banana bread but the muffins don't ever seem like they need a little dollop of butter on them. It's just a win, win, win.
These carrot banana bread muffins turned out pretty good too. They were a bit less sweet then I'd imagined they'd be so I pressed the tops of the warm muffins in a bowl of sugar. I am currently out of coconut oil (which I use in place of the vegetable oil called for) so I used unsweetened apple sauce instead of oil. It's really a great substitute for oil in muffins or sweet breads. At this point in my baking "career" I think I'm incapable of following any recipe to the letter. But the good news is that my treats have all been turning out really well despite my many alterations.
In other news, while keeping on the subject, I'd mentioned about two weeks ago that I was making a goal to not purchase sweet treats/ sweets in general but instead any yummy dessert-y type thing I enjoy would need to be homemade. The purpose of this goal was two fold, to ideally lower my spending while not picking up a box of ice cream bars or a bag of m'n'ms or anything of the sort and to lower my sugar intake. I'm also cooking with mostly all organic ingredients now and coconut oil instead of butter so any sweet treats we're indulging in at home are considerably healthier sweet treats too. I did purchase a snickers ice cream bar the other day while we were shopping for a big helper reward at the dollar store but other than that I've been completely successful with this goal for almost two weeks. It hasn't been as difficult to avoid buying sugary stuff as I'd thought and I'm also not making as many treats at home as I imagined I might end up making. Additionally little things like banana bread muffins are working quite well to satisfy my sweet tooth (I have a pretty aggressive sweet tooth; we're talking like saber-tooth tiger aggressive). I can't even remember the last time I had chocolate (other than the snickers ice cream bar) or ice cream. I'm really liking this goal!
I think the best chefs are the ones who don't follow a recipe - they "feel" what a recipe needs. I, on the other hand, stick EXACTLY to a recipe and it STILL turns out yucky.....oh well, some people like you have the cooking talent, some don't....
ReplyDeleteI won't mention I'm about to go hit the freezer for one of the ice cream bars I bought....he he
I've never been very good at "feeling" what a recipe needs but I think the old saying practice makes perfect may be coming into play here. I've been trying to bake a lot more after realizing how much I really enjoy it and I really am getting much better at making little changes and knowing what it going to happen if and when and so forth :)
DeleteYou always make me giggle!
These look so yummy! Thanks for sharing, I love finding new recipes to try! Have a great evening.
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Jill
thanks! I really love trying new recipes too. I really need to work on finding new recipes for meals though, not just baked goods, haha
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