Our baking, ourselves

I like knowing what’s going into my food and going into my body and for the things I eat to be useful for it. I don’t think baked goods have to be an exception. Of course I can never pass on a yummy looking cake, especially really absurd birthday cakes with giant frosting flowers (I was recently introduced to Mexican tres leches cake, now officially my favorite), and one day I will learn how to make a proper shortening rich pie crust. Those delights are definitely not for every day, not for me at least. But hey, your tummy is yours and no one else's, you know?

I’ve adapted a baking habit that nicely joins my preference for experimenting with non-traditional ingredients and using whatever I’ve got lying around. I like to bake by the hip and try new things (I also have the attention span of a five-year-old and am incapable of following a recipe, really). I am totally messy and I love getting my fingers all batter-sticky, licking off the spatula when I’m done, and thinking of all the different goodies to throw in as I go. I like giving my baked goods to my friends and neighbors, especially since the favor is almost always returned!

Regarding those aforementioned non-traditional ingredients, I like to mix flours as much as possible and am always on the prowl for new combos. I rarely use wheat alone, and I've found that most things are so much better that way. Below is a recipe I made up recently, following my usual highly refined what-the-hell technique. This is my first time using irish oats, and I am forever sold. These have the great soft chewiness you could expect from regular oats, but are much lighter and have more of a wheat-bread texture. The fruit juice gives these just the right amount of sweet. I used two different egg substitutes here, the silken tofu and the flax. You could use real eggs too of course, but I suggest halving the baking powder and omitting the soda if you do, unless of course you’d like to experiment with making fig popovers! Doesn’t sound too bad actually…

Oatmeal fig muffins

1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Cup ground irish oats (or other oat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 TBS ground flax seeds
1/4 Cup silken tofu (soft or firm)
3/4 Cup fruit juice (your choice, I used some apple grape pineapple punch thing)
1/2 Cup chopped dried figs
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds or cashews


Preheat oven to 375. Lightly oil mini muffin tin or regular muffin tin. In a large bowl, mix the flours, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flax seeds, fruit juice, and tofu. This should be fairly watery, like melted ice cream (although some tofu chunks are okay, your call), add water a teaspoon at a time if necessary. Pour liquid into the dry mix and add the chopped figs and nuts if you like. Fold batter until “just mixed” – for real, otherwise they’ll be totally dense and gnarly. Also, ladies and vegans take note, figs are a great source of iron, and adding a couple TBS of unsulphured molasses would really give these an iron kick.
Bake at 375 for 15-18 mins
Makes 8 mini muffins or 6 regular muffins (I made mine mini)