Mission 2: Banana Bread Muffins

aka Muffin madness.

I have this healthy banana bread recipe that I make all the time – it’s the one thing I can bake and I know it like the back of my hand. According to Joy of Cooking “any bread recipe can be turned into a muffin recipe, just use the same temperature and cut the cook time to 15-18 min”. I had already experiment with making these muffins before (ok I did burn the bottoms, but I had learned from that mistake…) so I figured the 2nd time around should be easy. For I believed I was an experienced muffin maker… of this recipe at least.

Wrong

The usual mix up of the batter goes off without a hitch. Mixing and measuring of ingredients takes me only 10 min or so…oh I love my Kitchen Aid Mixer. I place cute colorful paper cups in the muffin trays as the batter mixers away. I figure I should be done soon since Jorge is waiting on me to watch the season finale of True Blood.

It takes me another 20min to get the dang batter into the little muffin cups. The muffin cups often slide out of place as I try to pour the batter and as I reach the end, I realize I’m at least 1-2 muffins short of 2 dozen. Grrrrrrrrrrr. I spend the next 5min spooning batter out of other muffin tins into these last few cups, trying to keep it all even, and trying (unsuccessfully) not to drip batter all over the place.

Finished! I pop them in and set the timer… 15 min later I pull them out. Toothpick says they are still a little gooey, so they go back in for another 3 min. At 18 min I pull out the muffins, set the trays on the counter, a few of the muffins sort of look dented…and kinda collapsed in a bit... but to Jorge’s impatient “are you done yet?” we finish watching True Blood and I let the muffins cool.

The show is over, muffins are cooled, so I take one out for a QC check. As I begin pulling the paper off the base I quickly realize something is wrong… about 1/3 of the muffin is coming off with the paper. Then I realize the bottom ½ inch is also burned!!

I bring my muffin to Jorge who looks at the problem…and doesn’t say anything. The worse. He looks at muffin and looks back at me. Then says “well can’t you buy some muffins at the store?”

Ugh

I curl up on our big living room chair a declare myself a failure. “It’s a recipe for heaven’s sake! How do you mess that up!?! “

Followed by,

“This should be like math 1+1=2. Ingredients + directions = delicious baked goods. What the hell is my problem? I can do complex math, but I can’t even make a batch of baked good without ruining them somehow??” (this is followed by another whimpering berating ‘I suck at baking’ statement)

Jorge meanwhile is chuckling at my temper tantrum, and tries to explain to me that baking is not like math. Which (of course) I promptly refuse to listen too. There are directions – things that get measured, stirred, then cooked – well perhaps more like intro chemistry…. but I can sure as hell can do that too.

But apparently I cannot (as of yet) make an unburn, unpaper stuck, muffin. I can solve the wave equation, but I cannot solve the muffin one.

Muffins 1 : Natanya 0

I have muffin nightmares all night. I keep dreaming about the stuck paper and burnt sides…I set my alarm early to buy muffins at the store, and then I oversleep instead. The next day I arrive with my burnt muffins to work…unsure what to do, I think I was hoping they would secretly ‘heal’ themselves over night. I see my fundraising partner’s muffins, perfectly cooked cranberry orange. They look delicious. I gently push my muffins under my desk. I confesses to her that I “suck at baking and I burnt the muffins…again”. Heather of course is sweet and just laughs, hugs me and says not to worry. I still feel like a muffin-fundraising failure, but both her and Allicia console me and tell me “learning to bake just takes time….”

I got 5 more weeks of this, so we shall definitely see.