Whole Wheat Orange Yogurt Muffins (sugar-free)

I picked up 9 oranges for a bargain price of 498 yen ($5.62)... well, a "bargain" by Tokyo standards and thought some orange muffins might hit the spot as well as use an orange up before some of them start to spoil. Since I'm still interested in "healthifying" or at least "decalorating" my baked goods, I figured I'd create the orange muffins based on the existing banana and blueberry bread recipes that I've been using. The result was surprisingly good. In fact, I'm thinking I may modify the banana bread recipe after my experience with these muffins.

Note that the texture of these muffins is not going to be like those made with white flour, lots of sugar or fat, but it really is quite good. They're a bit denser than a conventional muffin, but not in any way like the dense hockey pucks you sometimes get when using whole wheat flour and skimping on the oil. I did not sample one fresh but rather had one for breakfast the next morning. With whole wheat baked goods, the next day is often better because the moisture tends to settle, though I recommend tightly wrapping them so no air gets in and freezing any that you won't be eating soon immediately.

Whole Wheat Orange Yogurt Muffins:

• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup plain unsweetened yogurt (low-fat is fine)
• the juice and finely grated zest of one medium orange (I used a Sunkist navel)
• 1 tbsp. Canola oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat bread flour)
• 1 cup Splenda granular (or use white sugar)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 6 walnut halves for garnish (optional)

Whisk the applesauce, egg, yogurt, juice, zest, oil, vanilla, Splenda, and salt until well-blended. Add the flour and mix until just moistened. Allow the flour to rest in the wet ingredients for 15-30 minutes. This allows large grain whole wheat flour to absorb more moisture. If you're worried about the egg, put the bowl in the refrigerator. Grease the bottom and lower sides of 6 muffin cups or a 6-cup tin. After the batter has rested, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F./190 degrees C. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups. They should be between 2/3 and 3/4 full. Gently push half a walnut into the batter so that it is half-submerged. Bake for 20-25 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. 


Each muffin is about 190 calories (not counting the walnuts).

I really liked these and will definitely be making them again. Originally, I planned to put dates in them, but the ones I had on hand were too old. I think they'd be great with some chocolate chips as well, though that would wreck the "sugar-free" angle. If you're a fan of nuts in your quick breads, some chopped walnuts would be a healthy add-in. Frankly though, I enjoyed mine as it was with some butter. (As an addendum: I had one a few days later wrapped in foil and warmed in the toaster oven and it was soft, fluffy and delicious - I recommend having them that way!)

As a point of comparison to my other quick breads, the batter for these was much wetter. I think that helped them to rise better, although that could also have been the fact that they were muffins. This time, I chose muffins over a loaf because of the summer heat. The breads take up to an hour to bake and the muffins take less than half that time. The only problem is that they are fussier and therefore there is more clean-up, but it was worth it.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal (Take 2)

Though my husband was satisfied with the previous incarnation of these pumpkin oatmeal bars, I thought they could be better, and they are. In this version, I wanted to increase the moisture by adding applesauce, reduce the oil, and increase the spices both in terms of variety and amount. The change in spices was motivated by a desire to make this more pumpkin pie like in flavor, and I think it worked. That being said, I think that this might be better yet in a third modification. Next time, I'm going to use a full cup of pumpkin puree and omit the milk to see if I can boost the pumpkin flavor without affecting the moisture balance.

This did turn out very well though, and is better than the previous version both in texture and in flavor.

Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal (Take 2)

• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 granular Splenda (or use white sugar)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree 
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 cup low-fat milk (or use whole milk)
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/3 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/3 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. cloves
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F./175 degrees C. Grease and flour a loaf pan. 


Mix all ingredients except the baking powder, flour, and oatmeal together. After all of these ingredients are mixed, add the oats and sprinkle the flour and baking powder over the oatmeal. Stir with a spoon until completely mixed.

Lightly beat the egg in a medium-size bowl. Add the Splenda (or sugar), pumpkin puree, milk, oil, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and vanilla. Mix well. Stir in the oatmeal, flour and baking powder until evenly mixed. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes until set. I baked mine for 40 minutes and that worked well.


entire loaf: 837 calories
6 servings: 140 calories per bar

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

There are two reasons to alter a recipe to incorporate whole wheat flour. One is that you have to for health reasons and the other is that you want to. Frankly, I want to, and it's not only for health reasons. White flour doesn't have the same flavor as whole wheat. In fact, it has little flavor at all which makes it great for cakes and cookies that are mainly bringing you their added flavors (chocolate, vanilla, etc.) plus sugar and butter.

For muffins though, and I mean standard breakfast muffins, not dressed down cupcakes, I like the flour to pull its own weight a little on the flavor front. Breakfast muffins, to me, ought to be somewhere between a cupcake and piece of whole wheat toast. Not so light as one and not as heavy as the other.

I searched for recipes that looked like they might suit my needs and came up with quite a lot of promising candidates. The one I settled on as a base for my recipe was at "Eat Better America". I didn't follow the recipe exactly because I wanted to use 100% whole wheat flour rather than a brown and white flour mix. I also didn't want to use honey because I don't like the texture it gives baked goods. I also skipped the brown sugar topping in favor of boosting the overall sweetness with some granular Splenda and added vanilla and cinnamon to the batter for more flavor.

Here was the recipe I made:

Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins

• 1 cup low fat milk (full fat is also okay)
• 1/4 cup Canola oil
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/4 cup granular Splenda (or just use white sugar)
• 1 medium egg
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3 tsp. baking powder
• 1 cup frozen blueberries (not thawed!)

Whisk the milk, egg, oil, brown sugar, Splenda (or white sugar), salt, cinnamon, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Sift or evenly spread the flour over the liquid ingredients and gently push the flour into the liquid with a spoon. Do not mix! Just try and get the flour pushed down a bit into the liquids. Withhold the baking powder at this stage. Allow the flour to rest and absorb the liquids for about an hour or so. I let mine sit for 90 minutes, but you can do it overnight in the refrigerator if you don't want to sit around looking at your watch. This resting period will contribute to a lighter muffin with a better texture despite using whole wheat flour.

After the flour has rested and absorbed some of the liquid, sprinkle the baking powder over it and gently mix until the ingredients are moistened. If you over-mix it, you'll work the gluten in the flour too much and have tough muffins. It helps to use a folding or cutting method rather than to stir.

Grease 6-9 muffin tins. Note that you'll probably get less of a rise but bigger muffins if you load all of the batter into 6 tins. I used 9 individual metal cups to bake mine. Start preheating your oven to 210 degrees C. or 410 degrees F.

After the flour and baking soda have been cut in (the batter should be a bit lumpy), gently fold in the frozen blueberries. Note that using frozen ones will prevent you from having purple muffins. Spoon the batter into your greased muffin tin. For 9, I put about 2 tablespoons of batter into each cup.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Note that the timing really depends on a lot of factors including the type of muffin pan or tins you use, whether or not you put the tins on a baking sheet or directly on your oven rack, and what sort of blueberries you use (and how frozen they are when they go into the oven). Mine took about 35 minutes, but I had to put my tins on a ceramic baking sheet which takes a long time to heat up. I imagine that is much longer than most people will require.

The muffin I sampled and cut in half for picture-taking saw more of its blueberries fall to the bottom than some of the others.

The muffins turned out very well. The texture was light and tender, though when it was fresh the one I sampled had some of the telltale graininess that I associate with whole wheat baked goods. This is related to the fact that my whole wheat flour is not pastry flour, but rather larger grain, higher gluten whole wheat bread flour. This graininess disappears after the baked goods I make with this particular flour sit overnight and the moisture gets absorbed more thoroughly. I had half of a muffin plain and half with margarine. It was quite good both ways.

One thing that irritated me was that the original recipe said that there was enough batter for 12 regular muffins and that the tins would be full. My tins are regular size, and 9 of them were only half full. I didn't do anything that would reduce the volume of the recipe. In fact, I may have increased it a tiny amount since I added an additional quarter cup of milk, sugar, and Splenda as a substitute for the honey. The only way a dozen tins that would be filled would be if they were mini muffins. I don't know why people lie on these types of recipes, but I'm guessing it relates to keeping the calorie counts more impressive.

Speaking of calorie counts, these muffins as prepared according to my recipe and with making 9 muffins are 195 calories each. If you use sugar or whole milk (or make 6 big muffins), that'll bump up a bit per muffin.

by Shari (Orchid64)

(Not So Great) Honey Lemon Oat Scones

I've been on a quest for the "perfect scone" for quite some time, and I don't consider "perfect" the way one might think. That is, I'm not looking for a texture or taste that is heavenly. I'm looking for a scone which is pretty good without requiring tons of fat to make it that way. After all, you can make anything good with enough butter (or bacon). It's no great feat to make a fabulous scone if you ply the dough with fat in the form of cream or butter.

I've probably tried a dozen or more low-fat recipes or recipes which use less fat than most. So far, no good. I found this recipe through a link on Foodgawker (I think) and it had a lot of appealing elements. For one, it doesn't use too much butter. For another, it uses oatmeal and it uses no refined sugar. The only question was whether or not it was going to come together as a decent scone.

I mainly kept the recipe as is. The only difference is that I didn't brush the tops with butter and sprinkle them with sanding sugar. This was mainly because I didn't have a brush or the right kind of sugar. I also split the dough in half and cooked half of it immediately, and put the rest in the refrigerator to bake the next morning. I wanted to see if leaving it to rest overnight would have an effect on the texture and how well it rose. Mainly, I wanted to see if the oatmeal would be altered by leaving it to absorb more moisture.

The ingredients and recipe are:

• 2 cups white flour
• 1 1/2 cups oatmeal
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 cup butter

• lemon zest from one lemon (the original said 2 tsp.)
• 1 medium eggs (the original used a large, I didn't have one)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup whole milk with 1/2 tbsp. vinegar in it (the original had buttermilk)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt (not in the original)

Mix the dry ingredients together then grate the butter with a cheese grater so that it forms long strings. With a wooden spoon, break up the butter strings and mix evenly into the dry ingredients. Mix all of the wet ingredients and lemon zest together well. Add them to the flour and butter and moisten everything. Try not to knead it, though it may be necessary to do so a little to get everything wet. The dough will be very sticky. Pat the dough into whatever shape you prefer then cut into shapes. I followed the same format as the original recipe and made a circle and cut it into wedges. I put the dough on a plastic cutting board to do this so I could avoid using extra flour. Bake for 10-15 min. (mine went 10) at 425 degrees Fahrenheit (220 degrees C.).


The flavor and smell of the scones was quite good. The main problem was the texture. I don't think the problem was that there was too little butter so much as far too many oats. I think that a half cup of oats might work far better. I also think that in making my faux buttermilk that I should have used lemon juice instead so that I could infuse these with more lemon flavor. I could smell the lemon a bit with these, but not taste it at all.

The main difference between the ones that I made immediately and the ones that I made overnight was that the overnight ones seemed coarse and tough and the ones I made right away were oddly chewy. Both of them rose just fine so the baking powder didn't lose its punch overnight. I also wonder if the honey may be contributing to the overall texture problem. I'd like to try these again, but next time with 1/2 of the oats (possibly toasted - see the next paragraph), more lemon, and possibly with about 1/2 of the honey and perhaps a bit of sugar. I don't think the oats affect the moisture balance much so I'm not likely to do anything in an altered recipe to change the amount of flour.

I'm also wondering if toasting the oats a bit in a pan might help. My guess is that 10-15 minutes at a high temperature isn't enough to really cook the oats at all. They're essentially raw when you're eating them in the scone which is why they're chewy and tough. If they're precooked a bit, their texture might be better.

When I try a different version, I'll post it here.

Update: I found that the oatmeal texture mellowed a bit after freezing the scones (and allowing them to rest in the kitchen for about a day). As is often the case with baked goods with a lot of whole grain in them, they were better the next day, though I still will make a modified recipe in the future.

by Shari (Orchid64)

Bread Machine Hamburger Buns

In Japan, I can't buy hamburger buns unless I go to an import shop. There are a few Japanese-made buns, but they are also only sold in the "gaijin ghetto" areas. For the record, the "gaijin ghetto" in Japan isn't some poor area with disadvantaged people. It's a very wealthy area full of people who are here on expense accounts and can afford maids and cars and to buy food from home all of the time.

My husband bought a bunch of American hamburger (you can't buy all-beef burger in my local markets - it's a pork/beef mix) and we've been waiting for the serendipitous appearance of the proper buns for him to eat them. Unsurprisingly, the burgers have been languishing in the freezer and the bun genie hasn't shown up to grant our wish.

If you don't have access to hot dog or hamburger buns, you may not realize how important they are to enjoying these foods. A good burger bun has to be soft, but not so soft that it squashes. It also can't absorb too many juices and turn all pink and icky. It also can't be too hard or the burger will tend to squish out or be hard to bite into. Finally, it can't be too sweet. One problem with all of the Japanese buns and rolls is that they're all noticeably sweet, even when they're designed for sandwich-making.

I decided to give in and try to make my own buns, but I'm also lazy so I wanted to do part of it in the bread machine and I didn't want to go shopping for special ingredients. I found a well-reviewed recipe on Recipe Zaar, but I didn't have bread flour so I decided to modify it to suit what I usually have on hand. Mainly, I had to use all-purpose flour and whole wheat.

The recipe as modified for my needs is:

• 1 1/4 cup slightly warm milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. Canola oil
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup vital wheat gluten (can be reduce and replaced with flour)
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast
• melted butter for brushing

Put all of the wet ingredients into your bread maker's pan then the whole wheat flour. Add the remaining dry ingredients except the yeast which should be placed in a well in the flour. Use the bread machine's "dough" setting to prepare the dough.

When the dough cycle has completed, roll the dough out (divide if necessary to accommodate your rolling space) and cut using a glass or biscuit cutter about the right size for your buns. Brush with melted butter. Allow to rise until doubled in size and bake at 350 degrees F./180 degrees C. for about 15 minutes. Note that my oven tends to be slow so your time may be shorter. I also use porcelain baking sheets which are slow to heat.


These made buns which were tender and soft, but I think they puffed up too much. I added 1/4 cup of vital wheat gluten to offset the fact that I wasn't using bread flour (which is higher in gluten) and the fact that I was using wheat flour (which often needs gluten to boost its rising power). I think I'll use the same recipe in the future, but roll them thinner and cut them smaller.

The texture is actually very much like what you'd get from a good commercially made hamburger bun. I was really quite pleased with how they turned out (except for the size).

by Shari (Orchid64)

Baked Oatmeal

I have a love-hate relationship with oatmeal. Actually, it's mostly a "hate" situation, to be honest. My main consumption of oatmeal comes from hiding it in baked goods like bread so that its gluey, gloppy nature does not have a chance to manifest itself.

Yet oatmeal still beckons to me on several fronts. It's dirt cheap when you buy it in huge boxes of the plain stuff at Costco. It's also better for you than most other things you can eat for breakfast because it has a low glycemic index and good amounts of fiber and protein. If it just didn't feel like gruel or prison food, I'd try to choke it down more often.

To that end, I've tried various baked oatmeal recipes on occasion and found that they were lacking. I finally came across one that works (for me at least), but I don't remember exactly where it came from so I can't credit the creator. Of course, all of the recipes you see scattered around the internet are hardly unique. Most people are just taking other people's work and passing it off as if they just whipped it up off the top of their heads, so I don't feel too guilty about not linking to the recipe.


Don't get me wrong about the desirability of this dish. It's still oatmeal. It's in no way going to compete with a doughnut or a danish, but it is less disgusting than conventional oatmeal. It has a somewhat "cakey" texture to it and the oatmeal isn't gluey. It's nice enough, mind you, but mainly it's a delivery method which is far less objectionable than usual.

Baked Oatmeal:

• 1.5 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp. melted butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 packets heat stable artificial sweetener (optional - I used Splenda)
• 1 tbsp. honey or syrup (for serving)
  

Mix everything together and pour into a lightly greased baking dish. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F. (180 degrees C.) until firm and set in the middle. Serve with about a tablespoon of honey or syrup drizzled over the top. Makes 3 modest or 2 large servings.

I didn't actually use a greased dish. I just tossed everything into a glass baking dish, stirred, and baked. I wouldn't do that with a metal baking dish though, and I did have a bit of a hard time getting the residue off of the top part (though it didn't stick to the glass at all on the bottom). You can make this ahead and just keep it in the refrigerator for a day or so. I just warmed mine up a bit in the microwave for about 30 seconds before eating and it was quite good.

by Shari (Orchid64)