baking therapy

When the hot weather hits, I forget all about baking. But yesterday it was argument central around here and when Jay and I were smart enough to stay out of each other's path, Sadie had a suggestion: "let's make muffins Mommy". That girl had the right idea. We put on our aprons, turned up Willie Nelson and tried a new concoction that was essentially a vegan-ized version of an Ina Garten recipe with an extra helping of chocolate. By the time they were ready the bad vibes were history and we all sat outside with our warm treats and shared them with the neighbours. Here's the recipe:

No More Bickering Muffins

1 cup Bran cereal (I used All Bran sticks)
1 cup vanilla soy milk
1/2 cup non-dairy margarine (PC Celeb has one)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 very ripe banana
1/4 cup blackstrap molasses
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/c cups flour (wholewheat or all-purpose)
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup non-dairy chocolate chips (Loblaws No-Name are the only ones around here)
1 ripe banana, chopped into small chunks

Combine Bran cereal and soy milk and set aside for at least 5 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream margarine and sugar together, then add the very ripe banana and combine really well. Next add the molasses and vanilla. Finally add the Bran cereal mixture and mix well. In a separate bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the dry ingrediants to the wet in two stages and mix until just combined. Fold in the raisins, chocolate chips and banana chunks. Using an ice cream scoop drop batter into muffin cups. This batch made 15 muffins for me, but I could probably have squeezed the batter into 12 cups. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Especially yummy when eaten warm.