Making Amends 3C Muffins

 Baking smells for a wake up call.

A warm muffin for breakfast

Chocolate in the first bite.

Earns forgiveness.  100%


After yesterday's disaster, I felt obliged to make a good muffin, good from both our points of view.

So here goes

 Carrot - Coconut - Chocolate - Muffin

Group I

1 cup whole wheat flour (aata)

2/3 cup chickpea flour (besan)

1/3 cup all purpose flour (maida)

1/2 - 1 tsp chai masala (or a combination of cinnaom, cloves, nutmeg, dry ginger)

1 tsp baking powder

Group II

1 cup yogurt

1/4 cup oil

3 medium sized eggs

1/3 cup regular sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

Group III

2 medium carrots grated (about 1 - 1.5 cups)

1/2 coconut grated ( 0.5 - 1 cup)

1 sweet lime juiced

1 apple peeled and coarsely grated into above sweet lime

1 pear peeled and coarsely grated into above sweet lime.

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup walnuts/almonds/pistachio chopped

Preheat oven to 175 deg C or 350 deg F

Mix group 1 ingredients througly, with finger tips preferably.  Ensure the yellow besan is evenly spread through the flours.

In another bowl, beat group II ingredients until homogenous, 10 minutes by hand, 5 by hand held mixer;  First mix the yogurt and sugars, then the oil, eggs 1 at a time, finally the essence.

Pour Group I into Group II and mix gently.

Fold Group III into the mix.

Pour into a buttered muffin pan and bake 20 - 25 minutes until golder brown and a toothpick inserted in the centre brings out just some crumbs, not wet liquid.

Notes:

• Takes just 45 minutes to do, end to end.
• I made 22 muffins on the smaller side.
• The vanilla essence takes the edge off the chai masala and gives the whole dish a sweeter feel.  The pepper/ginger in the chai masala adds a bite. Together, an awesome combo.
• These muffins don't rise much, but they have a light crumb. 
• This could serve as dessert too, or evening snack...
• I almost always use this proportion of ingredients for baking (Group I and II; chai masala is a rare addition).  The oil is to preserve the moisture after day 1 in the fridge.  This is a fairly low fat muffin.
• You cannot taste the besan distinctin the muffin.  Yay!  I did not have any pottukadalai, so I used the long forgotten box of besan in the fridge.I was so worried I had messed up the muffin.

Gau craves vanilla cupcakes  :)  This is a roaring success.  gau asked me to pack a couple to eat in the van after he had the first muffin.
Substituting yogurt for butter, wholewheat for APF, a good blend of fruits and veggies and substituting some protein (besan) for carbs (whole wheat).
This is my submission to the Mad Scientist, Archana Potdar's , fast food not fat food.  This even was lauched by Priya initially.

I was looking at TangyMinds blog and admiring her cake decoration when I realized, the muffin follows the cake recipe of bake along quite closely.
So I decided to submit this recipe to the bake along.

Bake Along Challenge is twice a month bloghop, hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids.

My nephew and niece turn 1 on tuesday, 18th Sep, this is the cake decoration they are going to get :)  I didn't want to overload them with buttercream icing.  This is perfect and beautiful!