Saturday, June 7, 2008

I SO Did It!

In many ways... but not the one you're thinking of! Sheesh... dirty minds...



Firstly, (and something that's most important to me!) I made someone's day!!! Valli's, to be precise. She gave me these (two... I think!) wonderful awards a few days ago over at her blog More Than Burnt Toast, and it really touched me! I don't get to read her blog as often as I'd like to, but when I do it's always full of inspiration, humor, beautiful photos and lots of Canadiana! She has a great comprehensive list of us Canuck bloggers too... go check it out!! One of the conditions of this great honour is to pass it on - share the love!! - to 5 or more fellow bloggers. Here goes:

There are SO many more awesome people out there, but for now, ten of them get an extra gold star!

Okay... onto other things I did! Including turning on the oven... oh, you bet I did... 34C weather be damned!

So, anyways, you know that starter that's been kick'n around for the past 9 days?? Well, I finally decided it was time for it to earn it's keep. After all, it's caused me some anxiety attacks in it's early stages! "But what?" came the voice of my Cheshire Cat-like brain, "you don't have time or enough experience for a loaf... and God knows if that piddly thing in a jar you call sourdough will even raise it!". Okay, bread was out. Thankfully, the blog-o-sphere was to the rescue! Particularly, a certain Breadchick, whose Bread Baking Babes have concocted zillions of baked loaves and rolls so far and who put out a wonderful sourdough tutorial for the lot of us... including the base for this coming recipe. Thank you so much!!

Sweet N Sourdough Raisin Spice Muffins
Makes 12
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup (active, 100% hydration) starter - feed 2-12 hours before
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp maple extract
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup raisins

  1. Preheat oven to 400F, grease 12 muffin cups.
  2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda and spice in a bowl.
  3. Seperately, mix the brown sugar, starter, egg, vanilla, maple extract and apple sauce.
  4. Gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry, just until mixed.
  5. Fold in the raisins.
  6. Bake 18 minutes.
  7. Cool 3-5 minutes in tins, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 119.8
Total Fat: 0.6 g
Cholesterol: 17.7 mg
Sodium: 10.3 mg
Total Carbs: 26.9 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.3 g
Protein: 2.5 g

Obviously, the acidity in the starter is alive and kicking!! They're perfect and smelled just like the best, freshest oatmeal-raisin cookie! I may make a few more batches before getting a loaf under my belt, but I didn't kill it!!! Yay!!

Oh, and I did a great big happy dance when these came out of the oven. The cat was not amused that I woke him, and probably even less so that I took this photo.


4 comments :

  1. the muffins were so good that i ate 2 lol

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  2. These look so wonderful, I may have to begin a batch of Sourdough Starter again. I can almost smell them baking!

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  3. Thanks! Glad to hear the recipe was used.

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  4. Rather late than never, thank you so much for the award and the kind words Sarah. I was looking for something at Technorati and saw my name there.

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Thanks for the feedback!