Success with Muffins!

One of the first things I attempted to bake by "soaking" my flour was the muffin recipe from Nourishing Traditions.  I don't know if it was user error, or what exactly happened, but what I ended up with were flat, dry, tasteless muffins.  Yuck.  I am not a picky eater at all, but I couldn't even eat them.  Of course the silver lining in this little story is that in my desire to use those muffins for something (rather than throw them out) I discovered my bread pudding recipe.  That recipe has become a staple in my kitchen (partly because it's so good & easy, and partly because I have had so many failed bread attempts!).

Not being one to give up so easy, I decided to try muffins again when I saw Wardeh's recipe for Basic Soaked Muffins.  I saw the pictures and the comments, and this made me feel confident that these might work out- and they did!  You start by combining 1 1/2 c. flour (it says pastry flour, but all I had was regular whole wheat), 1/2 c. rolled oats, 1 c. milk, and 2 Tbsp. vinegar (I actually used whey, because I have so much after making yogurt cream cheese.)

I let it soak for about 20 hours.  To melt the 1/2 c. coconut oil I needed, I placed it in a glass jar inside a pot of water on the stove.  In a bowl separate from the flour mixture I whisked together 2 eggs, 1/2 c. turbinado sugar, and 1 t. vanilla.  Then I slowly poured in the melted coconut oil, whisking continuously.  I added in 1 teaspoon salt and 2 teaspoons baking powder.  I also added in Wardeh's suggested spices of 2 t. cinnamon, 1 t. ginger, and 1/4 t. nutmeg.  At this point I also began preheating the oven to 375.

Now it's time to add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture.  Here is what my flour mixture looked like:

Can you see the discoloration that is on the surface?  This darkening seems to happen when I soak using cultured dairy (kefir, whey, yogurt, buttermilk) but it doesn't affect the finished product.  When I was adding in the egg mixture to the flour, I had a "lightbulb" moment.  I decided to finely chop some organic crystallized ginger & add it to the dough.  I took two squares (example below) and mixed it in.

And here is what the dough looks like when it is all mixed together (I added 1/2 c. raisins in later to part of the batter).

I didn't have enough muffin liners, so part of the pan I just rubbed generous amounts of coconut oil inside (one of the great things about using coconut oil when you bake is if you get it on your hands you just rub it in!  Great moisturizer!)  The ones that have no liner are without raisins.  I used my cookie scoop to drop a few scoops of batter into each cup.

After baking for 20 minutes I stuck a toothpick in one of them & they were still very wet inside.  About another 8 minutes & they were perfect.  Everyone in the family liked these.  They have a nice risen shape, good flavor (I really liked the ginger), and moist.

This post is a part of Real Food Wednesday at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.

Enjoy!
Lisa