Healthify. (COCONUT OAT FLAX MUFFINS)

Certain foods are great vehicles for healthy ingredients, and muffins are one. It’s truly a case of a recipe just being a guide. You can switch around grains and flours and fruits and sweeteners to make a healthier snack that is customized especially for you and yours to devour. I took these muffins from Gold Medal Flour‘s website and messed with them. I find that product websites often have good, reliable recipes that are both healthy and -un. You can also find great starter recipes at Bob’s Redmill and King Arthur but, my point remains, don’t be afraid to tweak!

As an example of how and what I modified, you will find my recipe below, as well as the original, for comparison. You can see that applesauce has replaced half of the oil and I brought the sugar levels down all around. I swapped out half of the chocolate chips with raisins, and I omitted chocolate altogether from the topping. Some of the additions happened to be on hand (bran, oat flour, flax, etc.) and some, like coconut, my fam just enjoys. Gold Medal didn’t do a bad job here! Original recipe calls for whole wheat flour and oats, which is a perfectly acceptable health-supportive combo. Even the amount of fat in the original recipe is kept at a minimum, with just a bit of oil and some yogurt. But I went ahead and kept on pushing.

COCONUT OAT FLAX BRAN RAISIN CHOCOLATE CHIP YOGURT MUFFINS
(makes 12 large muffins)

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup oat flour

1/4 cup wheat bran

1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons apple sauce

scant 1/3 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup plain yogurt

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup raisins

Streusel Topping

2 tablespoons canola oil

2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/4 cup old fashioned oats

1/4 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

2 tablespoons flax seeds

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, bran, coconut, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, applesauce, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and yogurt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined. Fold in (1/2 cup) chocolate chips and raisins.
• Divide batter evenly among greased muffins cups.
•  Streusel: In a small bowl, stir together the struesel ingredients with a fork until well coated in the oil. Place a heaping tablespoon of streusel over the batter in the muffin cups.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes or until muffins start to turn golden brown and streusel is crisp. Let muffins cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before removing to cool completely.

  Original recipe:
  Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Greek Yogurt Muffins

  1 cup Gold Medal™ whole wheat flour
  1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
  1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  1 teaspoon baking soda
  1/2 teaspoon salt
  1 teaspoon cinnamon
  1/4 cup canola oil
  1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  2 large eggs
  1 teaspoon vanilla
  1cup Yoplait® Greek vanilla yogurt
  1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
  Streusel
  2 tablespoons canola oil
  1/3 cup dark brown sugar
  1/2 cup old fashioned oats
  1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla and Greek yogurt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until well combined. Fold in 1 cup chocolate chips.
• Divide batter evenly among greased muffins cups, filling each one almost full.
• In a small bowl, stir together the struesel ingredients with a fork until well coated in the oil. Place a heaping tablespoon of streusel over the batter in the muffin cups.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes or until muffins start to turn golden brown and streusel is crisp. Let muffins cool in pan for 5-10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely or enjoy.

I paid $9 for a chocolate bar: Mast Brothers chocolate

I paid $9 for a chocolate bar. And in these tumultuous financial times, by blogging about it, I think I will count my minor rebellion as… research. Mast Brothers Chocolate had entered and left my consciousness several times since reading a piece on this collaboration in Edible Brooklyn a few months back. Their product lingered in my mind because it is the only bean-to-bar chocolate creation in all of New York, and one of the few in this country. The Mast Brothers, Rick and Michael, travel to locations such as Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Madagascar to source whole cocoa beans from small farms. They bring the selections home to Brooklyn and make their skillful confections from absolute scratch. Of the bars wrapped in decorative paper (some labeled with the region), I chose the Dark Milk Chocolate (60% Cocoa) + Salt & Pepper. The king and queen of condiments sold me in a snap because I love the integration of salt into sweets, and I am never afraid of pepper. Never. The ‘dark milk’ chocolate factor did not occur to me until I got home. It may seem an oxymoron but, as I learned, it indicates the best of both worlds.

As a part of my ‘research’, I really paid close attention while I was eating this chocolate. And, laugh if you will, I learned that in art school. We had one of those take-your-shoes-off-in-class instructors who made us eat a single raisin for 30 minutes, noting what our mouths were doing, what the piece of dried fruit was doing, where our thoughts were going, etc. It seemed ridiculous at the time to us graphic design students but now that I am in the food business…well, it still seems kind of ridiculous. But yesterday, paying attention paid off. Each time my teeth bit down I encountered all of the velvety, melty-ness of milk chocolate. As they parted, in the natural repetition of chewing, the note of perfect dark chocolate dashed away any doubt that this chocolate was milk-focused. The pepper was quite subdued, it sort of grounded the flavors with a subtle earthy foundation. Then there was salt –a bit player that completely steals the show. The crumb-sized crystals were causing my mouth to water like crazy and deliver all of the delicate and rich flavors to every part of my palate. ‘My head is like a washing machine full of chocolate!’ I told Miss S after a few glasses of wine (a friendly pairing of Washington State Merlot from Sunset Rd. Vintners, 2006). Earlier I had discovered that the chocolate also went insanely well with a tannic cup of Oolong tea. Miss S tried a small bite of Dark Milk Salt Pepper with some cheese from the Basque country and was very pleased…

Though no aspect of the Mast Brothers’ meticulous business can be described as ‘easy’ there is something about the straightforwardness that translates as simplicity. It is this unclouded simplicity that allows the quality of the ingredients and the process to shine through, providing us with a beautiful handcrafted chocolate bar that is -simply- exceptional. To add to the value, just eat it slow.

Available at the following shops: http://www.mastbrotherschocolate.com/locations.html

or the Mast Brothers’ very own location @ 105 North Third Street, between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue • Williamsburg