whole wheat muffins.

One day I'll actually watch Mark Bittman's instructional videos before preparing his recipes. Until then, the digital versions of his recipes will remain my guiding light.  I stumbled upon this whole wheat muffin recipe and immediately recognized an opportunity to put to good use some whole wheat pasty flour I had kicking around.

According to Bittman, the trick to these muffins is first the use of the whole wheat pastry flour, a finer-milled cousin of the heavy whole wheat flour I usually have to cut with white flour to keep my baked goods light. The second secret is the addition of one cup of mashed fruit-or-certain-vegetables in lieu of water. I used mashed zucchini and was satisfied with the neutral flavor and smooth texture. I would imagine that fruits like peach, apple or banana would impart much more flavor to the muffin, which could be a plus or minus depending on your fruity preferences.

My muffins came out moist, therefore smoother-battered and lacking the lovely texture in Bittman's photos and videos. I hypothesize this is due to my use of waterier-than-potato zucchini, thin and improvised "buttermilk" (1 teaspoon vinegar per cup of milk) or perhaps my larger muffin tins.

Nonetheless, these muffins were very satisfying: slightly sweet, lightly buttery and just whole-wheat-flavored enough.

AMH