ARF/5-A-Day Tuesday Plan B

Apple Oat Bran Muffins
Have Your Cake and Eat It Too Copyright 1993

Butter-flavor no stick cooking spray
1 ½ Golden Delicious or Granny Smith apples I used Gala
2 large egg whites
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons apple cider or apple juice I used low-fat buttermilk
3 tablespoons canola or safflower oil
1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed
½ cup unsifted all-purpose flour
½ cup unsifted whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup oat bran
½ cup seedless raisins
granulated sugar

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F. Coat the muffin cups with cooking spray.
2. Peel apples and grate on medium-size holes of box or mandoline grated to make 1 ½ cups grated apples. I used the large holes on my grater.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg whites, cider or juice, oil, brown sugar, and apples. Set a strainer over the bowl and add both flours, the baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir and sift the dry ingredients onto the egg mixture. Add the oat bran and raisins and stir well to blend.
4. Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle a little granulated sugar over the batter. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in a muffin comes out clean. (Watch these closely after 15-20 minutes.) Cool the muffins in the pan on a wire rack for about 5 minutes, then gently pry them for the pan with a fork. Serve warm. They're good when they're not warm too!

Makes 12 2 ½-inch muffins. Per muffin (with juice or cider) : 145 calories, 3 g protein, 4 g fat, .4 g sat fat, 27 g. carbs, 156 mg sodium, 0 mg cholesterol.

This wasn't supposed to be my contribution to this week's ARF/5-A-Day Tuesdays over at Sweetnicks. Sunday night I made a Cauliflower, Potato and Pea Curry from Food and Wine Magazine's Quick From Scratch Herbs and Spices Cookbook. I decided not to blog about is as I don't think words and phrases such as 'gag', 'nauseating', 'almost puked' and 'I'd rather stick my head up a baboon's ass than ever smell that odor again' belong in a food blog. I was still sickened by the thought of this dish the next day, long after it was in the trash and moved out of the kitchen. I don't think it was the recipe, I think it came down to their being some flavors and aromas that I just don't care for and this dish fell squarely into that category.

As much as I hated the curry dish, I love these muffins. I've actually made these several times, although not recently and never with buttermilk. They were moist and delicious but they were on the small side. They probably would have risen a taller if I had adjusted the leavening agent since I replaced the liquid with buttermilk. I know there are 'formulas' for that since buttermilk is more acidic than most liquids (but is it more acidic than apple cider or apple juice??). Anyone have any suggestions in this regard for next time? Should I have gone with just baking soda and if so, how much?

Although Gala apples are high in antioxidants, I didn't use the skin here, which is where most of the antioxidants in apples are found. But I used 2 whole apples in these so each muffin has 1/6 of an apple, raisins (which are rich in antioxidants), whole wheat flour and oat bran. They're low in fat and although the fiber wasn't in the nutritional breakdown, I believe the author mentioned in the text that each muffin had 2 grams of fiber. Not a earth-shattering amount of fiber but I give kudos any time a food has any measurable amount of fiber. Personally I think these would be great packed in a lunchbox. I packed one in my lunch bag, in fact.

I really need to try more recipes in this book. I really like the author's approach - she crunches the numbers but she seems to have really put an effort into getting a quality final product.

Question of the Day: What was your worst culinary failure?