freshly grated nutmeg | smilingfrog.ca

Baking in the new kitchen=SO MUCH BETTER than the apartment kitchen! Its bigger, actually has a dishwasher, and the oven is actually accurate! *Gasp* So I’ve been having fun. I’ve been trying a mix of new recipes and old faves, but feel that I need to push myself to actually creating my own recipes. So, the blog may be featuring some very experiemental stuff in the near future but that’s how you learn right? So I start with something easy. I make muffins a lot. They’re pretty easy and forgiving. I have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t….so I give you….

Carrot Muffins With Cinnamon Streusel Topping

Dry Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour (I used Robin Hood Nutri-Blend)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Wet ingredients

• 1 1/2 tsp egg replacer
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 1/4 cup shredded carrot, packed
• 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
• 3 Tbsp Canola oil

Streusel Topping

• 1 Tbsp cold butter
• 1 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp whole wheat flour
• 1Tbsp oats
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400. Line muffin tin with paper liners 

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Combine water and egg replacer in a small lidded container. Shake shake shake to combine. In a medium bowl combine remaining wet ingredients and stir to combine. For the streusel topping, “squish” everything together with your fingers until crumbly-like.

3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir just until combined. Don’t over-stir! (I hear my mother’s voice in my mind when I say this Spoon batter equally into muffin cups. Sprinkle the center of each muffin with streusel topping. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Nibble on streusel topping as soon as they come out of the oven.  Err…..enjoy!!!

I also made this….

Multigrain bread! I was so impressed with how it turned out. 

In other news….I’m taking a professional Baking and Pastry Arts class at George Brown College two nights a week. Its pretty intense and I’m very excited because I’m going to be learning A LOT. I’ll remember to bring my camera to class tomorrow so that I can post updates on everything that I get to learn!  

Carrot Cake is probably my most fave dessert ever. I also like mini things.

Here is my mini carrot cupcake pictured with one of my many frogs.

I’m not actually vegan, but you’ll notice that I do use a lot of vegan recipes, only because of Josh’s egg allergy and because I can’t have dairy. Oh well, it forces me to be creative and try new things. I got the recipe from this site.

http://happyherbivore.com/2008/05/the-famous-carrot-cake-cupcakes/

They were fabulous! Of course carrot cake requires cream cheese icing. I actually wasn’t too happy with how the icing turned out. It was super tasty, but lacking in texture, so I won’t post the recipe. New mission=finding a good cream cheese icing!