egg-free muffins

We're not an egg-free family. We're not vegan or vegetarian. We're not gluten- or wheat-free.

What we are...is out of eggs.

And cereal...and bananas...just about any breakfast food.

I forgot we were out of eggs, though. I knew we had no cereal, and I thought, "well, maybe I can make some muffins really fast..." I started thumbing through what muffin recipes I had, when I realized that they all take eggs. Did I mention we're out?

So I turned to the one place that has become a good friend of mine in this relatively new quest to cut fake food and unhealthy ingredients from our diet: Google search.

Search: "muffin recipe no eggs."

And my so-far-faithful friend showed me the Our Busy Homeschool blog, which had - lo and behold - a Basic No-Egg Muffin Recipe. It sounded normal and doable (and it didn't have a crazy amount of flour like some do) so I gave it a go.

Here's the recipe:

2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 c sugar (I used raw)
1 handful oatmeal (I used a solid handful)3/4 c water
1/4 c oil (I used canola)
1 c fruit plus appropriate spices
The recipe says to mix dry, then mix wet separately and then add to dry. I mixed the dry in my stand mixer, but then there were only the two wet ingredients and fruit left, so I just put the water in my big measuring cup, and added enough oil to make one cup, and poured them both in together.

I had one apple lying around that was probably in its last days so I cut that up into little bitty pieces, and filled the rest of the one cup with applesauce. Since I was using apples/applesauce, I added some clove, nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon. I was a little wary of how much to use, so I probably added less than I could have. Maybe an 8th of a teaspoon each. Maybe.

I even sprinkled some ground flax seed over the top of the mixture in the bowl, because a little ground flax never hurts. (Unless you're allergic to it, I guess. In which case, please don't use it.)

Mixed all together, poured into muffin pan. I'm out of cooking spray, but due to our tight budget this week, I have stick margarine (you can't beat 92 cents for four sticks, even though it's margarine), so I used my finger and spread a little bit of margarine around each muffin cup.

The recipe says bake for 18 minutes, but I was nervous about burning them (I'm still perfecting my muffin technique) so I checked them twice during that time. I ended up pulling them out at about 15 minutes, when they were still very light but looked more muffin-like than batter-like. I let them sit on the cooling rack, in the pan, while I drove Miss Eight to school, total about 10 minutes probably.

And I gotta tell ya...

They looked BEAUTIFUL! I loosened them from the edges of each tin with a knife, and they slid out all gorgeous and honey brown! I've never made such pretty muffins. I'm pretty proud.

One thing I would change, however, is simply how much batter I'd put in each tin. I'm used to filling them about 2/3 full because they'll rise, but these didn't really rise, so I could've used that little extra batter that was left in my mixing bowl and probably filled them close to the top.

The real test, however:
I let Mr. Five and Mr. Two pick out their muffins. Mr. Five said, "mmmm!!" Mr. Two gave me a thumbs up. I'd say they were a hit. And they ate theirs plain.. I split mine in half and added margarine and they were right - they were very, very good.

I'm very grateful to Ms. Our Busy Homeschool, who helped me make breakfast without eggs.