Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Marking a Blogday!

Happy first blogiversary to me (and thanks to everyone who made comments on the last post before I could get this one out there!)! I can't believe I've been writing this thing for a year - so many things have happened since I made that giant pot of vegan chili for Andrew a year ago. I started and finished a baking class at George Brown, kept the bakery going, became a featured publisher for FoodBuzz, wrote a ton of book reviews (with another one coming soon, promise!), watched my mom get married, played with gluten free flours, kept tradtions alive and started my very own sourdough starter (which so far has produced 3 stellar, 2 1/2 lb loaves of bread!). I wanted to say thanks to everyone who reads this blog and especially those who comment for giving me a reason to keep writing. With people like you around the blogging universe, I'll be at this for years to come!

Today's a special day for everyone in Canada, too! Our country marked it's 141st birthday, and cities all over the nation are celebrating with a variety of events - I know my (new) home city of Oshawa has a festival at the lakefront, Ajax has their BBQ, and of course all the fireworks that sent sales through the roof this past week will be put to good use tonight! So happy Canada Day to all who are celebrating today, and happy Tuesday to everyone else!

One of the things I thoroughly enjoyed on special days (in the summer or any time) was the Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake from Loblaws. It was my brunch meal when I was in summer school in grade 11 (advancing, not remedial!), which I'm sure was nowhere near a balanced diet. Mind you, I didn't start paying much attention to what I ate or any sort of nutritional information until after I started this blog either - talk about happy circumstances! These muffins have a similar flavour and light, cakey texture to my favourite childhood snack, all right - but where was the streusel?

Well, apparently I failed to take into account the weight of the streusel mixture when making these muffins, and as a result it disappeared into the cake part, adding a sweet, buttery hit to every other bite. I don't know if I'll make these again (at least this way), but for now, it's a summertime memory I'll share with you!

Disappearing Streusel Cinnamon Muffins
Makes 6 jumbo muffins
Topping

2 tbsp light margarine
1 tbsp flour
1/2 tbsp fat free plain soymilk
3 tbsp brown sugar

Muffin
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup unfed sourdough starter
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce
  1. Preheat oven to 375F, grease 6 jumbo muffin cups.
  2. Melt margarine, stir in flour, soymilk and sugar until thick and caramel coloured. Set aside.
  3. Whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar in a bowl.
  4. Seperately, mix the starter, vanilla and apple sauce.
  5. Gently mix the wet ingredients into the dry, just until mixed.
  6. Spoon into tins, top with the margarine mixture.
  7. Bake 30-35 minutes.
  8. Cool 3-5 minutes in tins, then turn out onto a rack and cool completely.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 210.8
Total Fat: 2.3 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 33.4 mg
Total Carbs: 45.5 g
Dietary Fiber: 4.2 g
Protein: 4.5 g

3 comments :

  1. Happy Blogoversary to you! That's quite a feat. And you can celebrate along with the country--how cool is that?? Those hidden-cinnamon muffins look pretty great, too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy Blogoversary! What an accomplishment :)

    I just saw that you had my site under "Fellow Bloggers: My Inspiration" on your Links 'n Stuff site. I just wanted to say thank you! I am continuously working to establish myself in the food blogging community. I really appreciate the link!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Blogversary!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!