Lemon Cupcake from Sprinkles

My sister brought home a Lemon Cupcake from Sprinkles for me to try!

The Lemon Cupcake ranks pretty high on my list of favorites from Sprinkles because it’s similar to the Strawberry Cupcake in that the frosting tastes very much like the fruit it is named for. Once again, the frosting is incredibly sweet, nicely juxtaposed with a bland cupcake. This combination seems to work well for Sprinkles.

I enjoyed this Lemon Cupcake, but the Strawberry still reigns supreme. 4 stars out of 5.

Plus, who am I to say no to free cupcakes?
Thanks, sis!

Strawberry Cupcake from Sprinkles

My sister brought home a Strawberry Cupcake from Sprinkles for me to try, so I thought I’d give it a review on my blog.


The Strawberry Cupcake is one of my favorites from Sprinkles because of the frosting. It’s sweet, but not overly so, and when mixed with a healthy bite of cake, the resulting taste is amazing. The actual cake tastes rather bland in comparison with the frosting.

While I would approve more if there were actual chunks of strawberries inside the cupcake (like a filling), I suppose this is one of the best commercially sold cupcakes I’ve had in a long time.

4.7 stars out of 5.

Tangerine-Almond Cupcakes

Loosely modeled after the Lemon Macadamia Cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

I’m really excited about how this recipe turned out! These are my first vegan cupcakes that actually rose higher than I had expected despite having no egg. My secret ingredient for vegan baking is adding soda which helps leaven the cake because of the carbonation. I’ll have to try this trick with my previous recipes and keep you updated!

Tangerine-Almond Cupcakes

Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients:

1/6 cup canola oil

¾ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup soy yogurt

1/3 cup soymilk

¼ cup tangerine IZZE (or orange soda)

1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup almond powder

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl, stir together oil, sugar, yogurt, and soymilk. Add IZZE, orange zest, and vanilla. Sift in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in two batches, mixing well after each addition. Add almond flour, and add a tablespoon more of IZZE if your batter looks too dense.

Fill cupcake liners ¾ full, and bake for 20 minutes.

I frosted these with an orange glaze and an orange rind curl



Orange glaze:

2 tablespoons margarine

1 cup confectioners sugar

1 tablespoon IZZE

Mash up the margarine with a fork, and add sugar. Mix. Beat in the IZZE until smooth.

Put on cooled cupcakes.

My Unrequited Love of Quinoa: Part 1

Quinoa is nutrient rich, and serves up a perfect source of a complete protein for omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike. After trying a series of amazing quinoa salads at restaurants and picnics, I decided to try my own hand at cooking this supergrain.

I soaked 2 cups of quinoa in a large pot full of water. I just kind of filled the pot by eye. After soaking the quinoa for about 15 minutes, I rinsed the water a couple of times, refilled the pot, and began boiling the quinoa on the stove. After boiling for about 20 minutes, with the lid slightly ajar, most of the water had steamed out of the pot, so I removed the quinoa from the stove and let it sit, covered. After the pot had sufficiently cooled off, I realized that my quinoa was not the delicious consistency of the other salads I had tried; my quinoa was gooey and oatmeal-like.

However, undaunted I trudged on. In order to salvage my efforts, I let the quinoa cool off, and steam out some of that excess moisture. For some reason, I have a similar problem when cooking tabouli.

My quinoa salad ended up tasting great with:
1 handful of shelled pistachios
2 tomatoes, diced
1 red pepper, diced
1 small handful of parsley, chopped
1 small handful of cilantro, chopped
1 small handful of basil, chopped
1/2 cucumber, diced
2 mint leaves, chopped
1/2 lemon zest and juice
1 tablespoon olive oil

I just mixed all of the ingredients together and let it sit in the refridgerator overnight. While in the refridgerator, the quinoa was able to absorb up the excess moisture. It was still a little more gooey than I would have liked, but it still tasted great!

Oh if only I had the magic touch when it came to cooking grains.
Oh if only quinoa loved me back half as much as I love it!

Daisy Cupcakes

This is a quick and easy recipe I came up with one night, as I was trying to figure out something sweet to bring to an art class party the next day. While I prefer to make cupcakes from scratch, everybody deserves a day off once in a while!

The cuteness of this recipe stems from the secret ingredient and the frosting style.

Daisy Cupcakes:
makes approximately 24

1 box of vanilla cake mix
1 bottle of clementine izze

Bake cupcakes as directed by the recipe on the cake mix box. Instead of adding water, substitute 1 bottle of clementine izze. Finish off baking for the amount of time directed.

Frost with a can of vanilla frosting.

In order to achieve daisy-like petals, remember not to frost the center of the cupcake. Use narrow 'S' shapes to form the petals.

As a cute decorating tip, pluck leaves from trees in your backyard to make your cupcakes look even more like flowers!

Black Bean Chocolate Cupcakes with Tofu frosting

These cupcakes are nutrient rich with black beans and banana hidden inside them. Admittedly, they end up tasting somewhat like chocolate banana bread, but they're tasty nonetheless. You can't even taste the beans. I modified the recipe which I found on Madhuram's Eggless Cooking website, which originally called for a prune puree that sounded too bizarre even for me, thus the banana as an egg substitute. The tofu mousse frosting is from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and it is for the adventurous. Daring bakers only.

Black Bean Chocolate Cupcakes
makes 16 cupcakes

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 banana, mashed

2 tablespoons water

1/6 cup canola oil

one 15.5oz can of black beans, drained, rinsed, and pureed

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line muffin tin with paper liners.

Drain the black beans from the can, rinse well under running water, and puree it in a food processor/blender using approximately 1/4 cup of water. The puree should be very smooth without any lumps. Add the sugar, mashed banana, 2 tablespoons of water, canola oil and vanilla extract. Process/blend it again for another 2-3 minutes. Transfer it to a large bowl.

In a small bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 3 parts, mixing well after each addition.

Pour into muffin tin, filling each cup 3/4 full. Bake for approximately 14 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Tofu Mousse Frosting
makes enough to frost 30 cupcakes

1 package extra firm tofu, drained of liquid.
1/4 cup soymilk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (12 oz) package of semisweet chocolate chips

Puree tofu in blender until completely smooth. This step is the most important because if you don't blend enough, you will end up with chunks of tofu in your frosting. These chunks are unappetizing to all but the most intense soy-lovers. Add soymilk, syrup, and vanilla.

In a double broiler, melt chocolate chips. You can use two nesting pots in place of a double broiler with the chocolate chips in the top pan and water in the bottom pan. After the chocolate has melted, cool for 5 minutes and then add to the tofu and blend.

Transfer to an airtight bowl and chill for an hour.

Something else to try with any extra melted chocolate is to draw on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Place your drawings in the freezer, and when they harden, you can use them as decorations for your cupcakes. Note the beautiful cactus cupcake and the cupcake cupcake below.

A Lesson in Animal Cracker Taxonomy

After eating my way through two boxes of animal crackers for the chocolate rain cupcakes and the cupcakes for a party, I became familiar with eight different species of Barnum's Animal Crackers. Further research has revealed the vast field of Animal Cracker Taxonomy which both puzzles and amazes.

Whenever you're eating an animal-shaped snack and you aren't sure whether to classify it as a cookie or a cracker, refer to the article below. It describes everything you need to know (and more!) about Kingdom Pseudobiotae, Phylum Consuma, Class Snacka, Order Animales.

Classification of Animal Cookies, Animal Crackers, and Related Taxa
Mark E. Eberle, Department of Biological Sciences, Fort Hays State University.

Plants: Shiso, Chives, and Another

Today I bought a couple of plants as the very beginning of my new herb garden! Two of these plants are cooking herbs that I am familiar with, and one is a completely random plant that I do not know the name of. Up top we have chives.

Next is shiso, a leaf commonly used in Japanese cooking. Now that I have a shiso plant, I plan to do a lot more cooking with it.

The name of the third plant I bought is unknown. I suppose I just bought it because it looked interesting. My current plan is to bring these plants to school in the fall to both brighten up my room and to add spice and flavor to dorm-cooked meals!

Chess Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made for a special Cupcake Chess match. The rules of cupcake chess are exactly the same as regular chess, but with a couple key differences:

1. When you capture one of your opponents pieces, you must eat it, or find someone to eat it.
2. A couple extra queen cupcakes must be made for pawn promotions. If you run out of the appropriate color of queens for pawn promotions, no more can be made.
3. You may allow some of your pieces to be captured so you can eat them.


The following cupcake recipes are from Vegan Cupakes Take Over the World:

Chocolate Mint Cupcakes
makes 24 mini-cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes
makes 24 mini-cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
2 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Follow the same procedure for both the Chocolate Mint and Golden Vanilla Cupcake Recipes.

Preheat oven to 325°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk soymilk and vinegar together and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.

Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat until foamy.

Sift together remaining ingredients and add in two batches to wet ingredients. Beat well and fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

1-up Cupcakes

These Super Mario inspired cupcakes are made with the Magnolia Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe, and a green tea cream cheese frosting. They're perfect to feed a video game player, and in some instances may add exponentially increased levels of happiness to your life!

1-up Cupcakes:
Makes 12 large cupcakes and 24 small cupcakes

2 3/4 cups flour 1 cup unsalted butter, softened 2 cups sugar 4 large eggs 1 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 325°F, and line cupcake tin.

Cream butter in a large bowl and slowly add the sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Fill liners 3/4 full, and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. After cupcakes cool off, frost with Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting:

Green Tea Cream Cheese Frosting: makes more than triple enough to frost one batch of these cupcakes. 1 cup butter 8 oz cream cheese 3 cups powdered sugar 2 tablespoons matcha powder

Beat together butter and cream cheese. Sift in sugar and matcha powder.

Reserve 1/4 of your frosting for the light colored spots on the 1-up cupcakes. With the remaining 3/4 of the frosting, add more matcha powder to reach a darker green color. It also helps to add some yellow and blue food coloring to the frosting in order to achieve a visible color difference.

To frost the cupcakes, make a layer of dark green frosting on the cupcake top with a butter knife. Then, with the lighter color of frosting, pipe on small circles, making small spiral shapes with the tip of your frosting bag. A small plastic bag works just fine for this.

And voila!
1-up cupcakes in two different sizes.

Snack on the bite sized ones as you decorate the larger ones, and be sure to share with your friends!

Cupcakes for a Party (x2)

On Sunday I baked green tea cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes to take to two parties. They're frosted with marshmallow frosting, and decorated with strawberries and animal crackers.


Some alterations I made to the previous recipes are:
1. I used margarine in the frosting, instead of butter. The frosting turned out thinner than I had hoped, and would not stay in the chrysanthemum shapes featured in the last post.
2. The Green Tea Cupcakes were made with regular flour instead of rice flour, and rice milk instead of soymilk.

I really had a lot of fun experimenting with decorations, as you can see below. My favorite is the octopus shaped out of pieces of strawberry!

Sprinkles Cupcakes

My wonderful sister bought me a Sprinkles Cupcake today as a thank you for driving her places. Although I didn't bake these, I decided to post a cupcake review of the varieties we tried today.

At $3.25 a pop, these cupcakes are pretty pricey.

My sister bought the Red Velvet and the Black and White Cupcake.

Red Velvet:
I found the cake part of this cupcake to be pretty good. It was moist, and slightly above average as far as red velvet cakes go. The Frosting, I believe, was cream cheese based, and it complemented the cake nicely. However, the frosting was incredibly sweet; almost too sweet at times. Luckily I had a nice glass of soymilk to help me wash down all that sugar.

Black and White:
The chocolate cake of this cupcake was average. After eating my own chocolate cupcakes over the weekend which are significantly less rich, and less greasy, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. The frosting was some kind of a buttercream, and it was teeth-tingling sweet. In my book, this is somewhat of a bad thing. I did not like this cupcake as much, because of the frosting.

All in all, the Red Velvet gets a 4 star rating from me, and the Black and White gets a 2.5.
These cupcakes are definitely superior to the Safeway/local supermarket variety, but they are still inferior to some of the homemade treats I've tasted.

Strawberry-Raspberry-Applesauce Cupcakes with Marshmallow Flower Frosting

This tasty recipe is modified from one found on Little Miss Cupcakes blog. The modified recipe is vegan, although the frosting is not. I have yet to see if margarine and vegan marshmallows can be substituted for the frosting.

I love this recipe because my success with it is what really inspired my subsequent adventures in the realm of cupcakes and ovens.

Strawberry-Raspberry-Applesauce Cupcakes
Makes 12 cupcakes

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/6 cup canola oil
1 cup applesauce
1 cup soymilk
1 cup of strawberry soy yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup frozen raspberries

Preheat oven to 300°F. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add canola oil, applesauce, soymilk, yogurt, and vanilla while mixing with an electric mixer. Do not overbeat. Fold in the frozen raspberries with a spatula.

Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full, and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely and frost with marshmallow icing.

Marshmallow Icing
enough to frost at least 24 cupcakes

2 sticks butter
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
16 oz. tub of marshmallow cream

Cream the butter on high until it's light and fluffy. Add the confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, and beat until fluffy. Add vanilla and marshmallow cream. Transfer to a plastic bag and pipe onto cupcakes.

In order to frost cupcakes in the Chrysanthemum style, make tiny 'C' shapes around the outer edges of the cupcake, spiraling clockwise towards the center of the cupcake. It helps to frost with one hand while rotating the cupcake with the other in order to form even petals.

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes

These cupcakes were inspired by a friend who asked for Chocolate Rain cupcakes for his birthday. Literally, it's a reference to Chocolate Rain, a youtube video with 39,000,000+ views by Tay Zonday.

'Chocolate' practically requires a chocolate cupcake, and 'rain' connotates a great flood where only two of each animal were saved on a boat. This explains my post earlier this week about the animal crackers.

After much deliberation, I settled on a chocolate cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with Green tea glaze frosting, to represent a dirt hill covered in grass. Animal crackers graze, while a light chocolate rain falls down upon their backs.

Chocolate Rain Cupcakes
makes 12 cupcakes

1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325°F and line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Whisk soymilk and vinegar together and set aside for a few minutes to curdle.

Add sugar, oil, and vanilla extract. Beat until foamy.

Sift together remaining ingredients and add in two batches to wet ingredients. Beat well and fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.


Prepare the green tea glaze, and frost the top of each cupcake. Then, place one animal cracker on top of each cupcake.


In a double broiler, melt semisweet chocolate chips. When melted, drizzle your chocolate rain. Enjoy!

Plans to Make Tofu

The Mercury News ran an article yesterday about making tofu. In it, Kuniko Yagi describes making tofu in the oven, the microwave, and a steamer.

Yagi says, "I felt embarrassed I couldn't make [tofu], being Japanese." Leryn and I found this hilarious because being Japanese doesn't automatically dictate that you should be able to make tofu any more than being French means you should be able to make croissants and baguettes.

The Mercury News also provided a recipe for custard-like tofu, which reminded me of my own tofu making ambitions.

Ever since I found these articles on making soymilk and making tofu on the Just Hungry cooking blog, Leryn and I decided to make our own soymilk and tofu out of soybeans that I bought at the local Japanese Supermarket. I also bought a bottle of nigari, the brine based coagulant that is used in making tofu.

I had originally planned to go to Toys R Us and buy an igloo shaped sandcastle mold and drill holes in it to make tofu igloos, but today I had a chance to buy a real tofu mold for $4.00 at Daiso. It seems like a complete rip-off for such a small mold that I could make so easily out of blocks of wood, but convenience won out in the end.

Status of the tofu making project: Mobilizing and in action. More details later.

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda

What are they, what do they do, and how are they different?

It's a common egg substitution to add 1/4 teaspoon baking soda along with 1/2 a mashed banana, or 1/2 cup applesauce, or another fruit puree. While the fruit puree acts like the moisture in the egg, helping to hold the batter together, the baking soda is the leavening agent, causing the cakey texture.

After today's zombie cupcake incident, I started thinking more about baking soda and baking powder, and why it turned my purple cupcakes into green zombies.

I'll be the first to admit that baking powder and baking soda are used somewhat interchangeably in my conversational vocabulary. When I mean to say I'm adding baking soda, 50% of the time I'll say baking powder, and vice-versa. After a little bit of research, I found that baking powder actually is made with baking soda.

Used in the kitchen, baking soda reacts instantaneously with acid in your batter to release CO2 that causes air bubbles in your baked goods. The batter rises and becomes cake-like.

However, baking powder has this acid component built in, and does not require additional acid (like apple cider vinegar) in order to activate.

Further research told me that not only acids, but starches as well can activate the CO2 release from both baking soda and baking powder. Thus, I am inclined to think that the heavy starch content of the Okinawan Sweet Potatoes reacted with the baking soda, and something about that reaction turned the purple potatoes into green ones.

Zombie Cupcakes

Today Leryn and I tried our hand at making up an Okinawan Sweet Potato cupcake recipe. Okinawan Sweet Potatoes are special because they are naturally purple, but they taste similar to the average sweet potato you can find at your local supermarket. To put it simply, these cupcakes did not turn out as planned, but with some tweaking, I'm sure I can get the recipe right in a few more tries!

1 cup Okinawan Sweet Potatoes, mashed
4 oz vanilla soy yogurt

I started with baked Okinawan Sweet Potatoes. After removing their skins, I mashed them with a fork. Then, I added 4 oz soy yogurt to make a light purple mixture with the consistency of mashed potatoes.
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup applesauce
1/6 cup canola oil

I added this purple mixture to 2/3 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup applesauce, and 1/6 cup canola oil. Up until this point, the recipe was turning out as expected. Leryn and I were quite excited to sample the batter which tasted delicious!
A connundrum awaits.

Most of the vegan cupcake recipes that I have made use baking soda to give the cupcakes a cakey texture, in the absence of eggs. Baking soda releases CO2 gas when reacted with acid, creating the desired cakey texture. Thus, I decided to add 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar to 1/2 cup soymilk in order to balance out the baking soda.

The fridge had just been stocked with rice milk, so I decided to make an experiment. After adding 2 teaspoons of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the batter, I separated my purple mixture into three portions.

The first:
Straight up okinawan sweet potato cupcake batter.

The second:
Batter with 1/2 cup soymilk, 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar added.

The third:
Batter with 1/2 cup ricemilk/rice drink, 1/2 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar added.

It was after mixing these three side batches that the trouble began.

Leryn noticed that the batter was reacting with something I had just added and turning a deep green color. Surprised, I realized it was the baking soda. However, I'm not sure why our cupcakes changed color; I just know they did. Dismayed as we were, we trudged on.

The muffin tin in the oven holds rice milk cupcakes on the left, soymilk cupcakes in the middle, and no milk cupcakes on the right.


And this is how they ended up. Cupcake graveyard status. They are green zombies that taste a lot better than they look.

Starting at the far left, going clockwise we have: Okinawan Sweet Potato cupcake with no milk; soymilk cupcake with extra flour; soymilk cupcake; rice milk cupcake; rice milk cupcake with extra flour.

Obviously the addition of milk was a problem, as these cupcakes exhibit classic no-egg swamp sinkage vegan cupcake syndrome.

That, and the slight problem of my cupcakes turning from purple to green. Perhaps next time I will try without baking soda and only baking powder. Or perhaps I will try with less of each.

But there will be a next time, and it will be better.
I can assure you of that!

Guess who bought WHAT?

Look at what I bought from the grocery store today.
Try to guess what I'm planning to make on Friday.
They're going to be cupcakes, and I promise they're going to be amazing.

Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes

Last week, I made Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes with my sister, and they turned out too good not to share. The recipe was modified from the Green Tea Cupcake recipe in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Instead of using regular flour, I used Mochiko (rice flour), which gave the cupcakes a crispy exterior and sticky interior. I think that since I substituted mochiko for flour, I should have added extra baking powder to counteract the denseness of the rice flour. I'll have to try again later.

Green Tea Mochi Cupcakes:
Makes 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup soy yogurt
2/3 cup soy milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/6 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cups rice flour (mochiko)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons matcha powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F, and line cupcake pan with liners.

Whisk together the yogurt, soymilk, vanilla, and oil. Sift in remaining ingredients. Fill cupcake liners all 3/4 full and bake 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks before topping with glaze:

Green tea glaze:
2 tablespoons margarine
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon matcha powder
2 tablespoons soymilk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mash up margarine in a bowl with a fork. Mix in sugar and matcha powder. Then, beat in remaining ingredients. Spoon on top of cupcakes, and enjoy!

Brown Sugar Nectarine Muffins

Today Leryn and I baked Brown Sugar Nectarine Muffins: recipe modified from the Brown Sugar Peach Mufin recipe found on the Post Punk Kitchen Blog.

They turned out super delicious with a really cakey inside and a crispy top, which is quite an accomplishment for a vegan recipe. The nectarines I had were unripe, so they were able to bake and soften to just the right texture in the oven. If you use ripe nectarines, they may get too gooey.

This recipe is a definite keeper. However in the future I'd like to experiment with adding oats in place of some of the flour to make it more nectarine/peach cobbler-y.

Brown Sugar Nectarine Muffins:
Makes 17 muffins
2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cups brown sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup soymilk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/6 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

3 nectarines, diced

Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly grease your muffin tin.

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, ginger, and cinnamon. Add the applesauce, soymilk, apple cider vinegar, canola oil, and vanilla. Stir lightly. Make sure you do not overmix. It's good if you leave a couple of lumps in the batter. Carefully fold in the nectarines.

Scoop batter into muffin tins, and fill to the top. These muffins will rise a tiny bit in the oven, but then sink back down to their pre-oven height after cooling off. Lightly sprinkle brown sugar on the top of each muffin. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted through the center comes out clean. Let cool before removing from the muffin tin and enjoy!

The Adventures of Leslie and Leryn Begin

Leslie is a Chemistry Major and Cupcake Connoisseur. One day, Leslie's favorite imaginary friend Leryn, the stuffed-from-eating-cupcakes giraffe, inspired her to create a blog to chronicle the delicious baked goods that periodically march out of her oven.

This is the beginning.
Recipe tweaking and experimentation shall follow.