on baking

There’s a reason why I write mostly about cooking and not baking. I don’t “really” bake. Cooking doesn’t require specifics, a lot of time and your results are not dependent on oven temperatures, the weather and pans. Just give me a normal pan, oil, salt and a few other ingredients plus 20 minutes, and something good can come out of it. Baking always – for me, anyway – requires a recipe, paying careful attention to the recipe and at some point or another, the realization that I have baking powder on hand and not baking soda.

I do love to look at and salivate over photos and recipes of baked goods. I read baking blogs and cookbooks obsessively and regularly plan to try one of the recipes that looks “easy enough.” One of the blogs I started reading recently – The Faux Martha – had a recipe that I tried for two simple reasons: it looked very easy, and it sounded like the kind of thing we could eat for breakfast. And let’s be honest, there aren’t a lot of baked goods I can eat for breakfast and still think I’m giving my body the strength and energy it needs.

(Diversion alert: Husband and his family get cake for breakfast on their birthdays and when I was there for my birthday a few weeks ago, I got to eat a strawberry panna cotta-type thing for my birthday breakfast and profiteroles.)

This muffin is no birthday cake material, but it is a bit like a bowl of winter porridge stuffed into a muffin cup and after 30 minutes of baking, voila. A muffin I can snack on during the day or hand to Husband to take for his breakfast on his way to work. It took about five minutes to assemble (because I had applesauce made and in the fridge), so when I say that this recipe is easy, I am not kidding.

• Baked Oatmeal To Go   I followed her recipe with only a few modifications – I used chopped pecans and put a lot more in, I used almost a whole cup of applesauce, and I sprinkled only a bit of sugar into the mix. The sugar can be omitted, especially if you’ve got dried fruit in there.