Adventures in Baking

Cooking blogs are a dime a dozen- easy to find. I don't feel this is a bad thing, but there are plenty of them out there.

There are many reasons why I didn't start a cooking blog- although the statement above isn't really one of them.

Probably my primary reason for not doing a cooking/baking blog is because so many others do it better than I ever could; I've already mentioned Shauna's blog at gluten free girl. If you didn't check it out before (see lazy blogging, PTIII), you really ought to - there are recipes and tips there that have nothing to do with a gluten free diet, they're just plain helpful (such as yesterday's post about an easy way to peel garlic).

Another reason would be that the most honest name I could come up with for such a blog would likely be very unappealing to most people. You see, truth-in-advertising would require me to call it something like "The Bad Baker" or "Misbehaving in the kitchen".

Because, after all, I am notoriously bad at following recipes. I don't know why, but I almost always want to tweak things, just a little. Today was no exception.

A request went out, earlier this week, for parents to send in baking and/or other treats for Staff Appreciation Day, which is today.  I could go on about the amazing people that work at Boo's school, but really, that deserves its own post.

Suffice to say, when I received the E-mail, I was all over the idea. Except, you know, I kind of forgot I was going to be out all evening yesterday, which meant I had to do my baking this morning.

In case I have not mentioned it before, I am NOT a morning person, so this could prove entertaining ...

Anyhow, I was asked to contribute muffins, and I have a lot of granny smith apples at the moment, so I decided I would make apple cinnamon muffins (gluten free, of course, but that's a given in this household).

Couldn't find my favourite cookbooks this morning. See above about not being a morning person ...

I did a consult with the Great God Google, and came across a very simple, straightforward recipe: gluten free apple cinnamon muffins. Super simple, few ingredients, no fuss, no muss.

For reasons I cannot quite explain, I played with it a little ... I started out by doubling the recipe (5 kids=I usually end up doubling most recipes).

Then, I changed the flours. The recipe calls for rice flour, but I find it tends to be quite grainy in texture, so I borrowed a trick I learned from Shauna, and did a blend of equal parts of: sweet rice, tapioca & potato starch flour.

The recipe also calls for grated apple, but that sounded messy. Instead I cut the apples into wedges and then into smaller chunks- I'm all about saving time on clean-up.

I tossed the apple pieces in the cinnamon, rather than mixing them in separately, if that matters to anyone.

They turned out really well, for the record, and since they were so quick and easy to put together, I made more for at home.

Good thing I did, because none of the ones Boo took to school made it back home ... :-P