Christmas Baking

I love watching the Christmas baking contests. They are fun and pique my creative muscles. In my kitchen, Christmas baking hasn’t seen much of such baking for a long time. I did get banana muffins baked today though. 

In most of the shows that I watch, contestants have everything they may need for their product. There’s always a twist half way through. So I decided to twist myself a challenge. There was a part of me that just didn’t want to take the time to walk to the grocery store. But my fridge has needed a good cull, starting with some rather black bananas. I also wanted to make muffins - haven’t made muffins for probably 20 years or more. My next preference was using whole wheat flour and oatmeal. With those parameters in mind, I turned my attention to Google and found the perfect recipe. Their list of ingredients required ‘3 extra ripe bananas’. So my black bananas found a home - there were only two but I had one other that was merely over ripe. Spices: I doubled the amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Nuts: the recipe asked for crushed walnuts. Don’t have any but I have cashews and almonds. Out came the food processor to chop and mix a balance of the nuts. At the last minute I threw into the batter a good handful of dried cranberries! Digging in my cupboard I found my long unused muffin tin and a little container of muffin cups. The recipe said it made a dozen muffins, but I got a dozen muffins + a little loaf.

They are delicious. True statement: I sampled a muffin and a slice from the little loaf. One never knows - a different pan may change the taste! Just doing my duty as official taster. The only thing missing would have been a cream cheese frosting with a dusting of cinnamon - or maybe some crushed candy canes. When my challenge is to use what I have, I’ll have to make sure I have those ingredients. 

All the muffins are safely and readily accessible in the freezer. So the frosting could be for another day?

“The more you know, the more you can create. 

There’s no end to imagination in the kitchen.”

~ Julia Child